An Unexpected Return
by Spikey44
Summary: Inside the shell of every vampire lurks the ghost of who they used to be. Damon thought his ghost long gone. He was wrong. Now he's not the only one who has to face the consequences. A story of delirium, acceptance, and chasing ghosts.
1. Chapter 1

**An Unexpected Return**

_Disclaimer: I don't own a thing (that is part and parcel Vampire Diaries) but I don't let that stop me._

_A/N: This story is dedicated to BadBoysAreBest who thought this idea was worth running with. Thank you._

_*This story takes place in a weird alternate timeframe somewhere in the near future, which ignores the Elijah and Klaus fracas for the most part because it's not relevant to this story and I don't want to make assumptions on how that will resolve itself. It is also an ensemble piece but will focus heavily on Elena/Damon and Stefan interaction.*_

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_The sleeper wakes:_

Damon Salvatore woke up to the sun streaming in laser bright through a gap in his curtains. He growled at it and the foggy ache behind his eyes and reached a somnambulant hand out towards a spare pillow, thinking of blocking out the offending sunshine with Egyptian down filled cotton. Instead his questing fingers smacked against cool moulded glass – oh right. Cracking open one eye blearily he peered at the mostly empty bottle of bourbon nestled on the pillow beside him. That would explain the headache then.

He flopped over on his back, sheets twisting tight around his hips, and in so doing his foot ended up nudging another bottle, discarded at the foot of his bed, onto the floor. Raising his head from the pillow (ignoring the way a dull lance of pain speared down from the crown to the base of his skull as he did so) he noted a further bottle of cheap whiskey perched on top of his book pile beside the bed and a mostly full bottle of Port left open on his dresser. Huh, okay then. He didn't remember drinking all _that_ much last night. Did he? Letting his head drop back into the puffy softness of his pillows he tried a quick mental recap of the previous night's activities. Let's see he remembered snarking at Stefan, annoying Elena due to his perceived lack of empathy for some pointless thing or other, going to the blood bank to pick up a new stash of bagged lunches, telling Caroline to stop mooching off his stash and then..._Blank_. Nada. End of transmission, which was...weird. Damon raised the bottle on the pillow next to him up to the light and appraised the fifth or so of liquor left inside suspiciously.

He was a vampire, he didn't get blackouts; it was physically impossible for him to drink himself into an unconscious stupor, and he should know! He'd put in a lot of hours of practice in the last hundred and forty odd years and he had never managed it. Fuck he had literally spent days upon days tanked up on booze and still had complete recall of everything he had done during that time. He'd tripped out on hard core pharmaceuticals and still not attained that vaulted state of oblivion. Had someone spiked his booze with vervain? The only time he'd ever been floored to the point of having zero awareness for several hours was after Stefan had used Caroline to roofie him that one time...but that didn't make sense. He and Stefan had been mainlining vervain extract for weeks now and while a decent tolerance took more time than that to build up, he still should have had enough in his bloodstream to counteract the full effects of the plant.

"...Screw this..." Flinging the bottle to the ground (he'd worry about cleaning up later) Damon surged up in bed and then swore loudly as pain like a freaking bear trap bit down on his brain; flash bulb bursts of searing white light exploded before his eyes and a burning tin-foil taste at the back of his throat made his fangs descend. _What the fuck? _His chest seized, lungs contracting and his cold dead heart made a very determined attempt to dive bomb his stomach. For the first time in a hundred and forty-six years Damon Salvatore felt like he was about to spew his guts – quite literally – all over his eiderdown.

Uncoordinated and lurching like Frankenstein's monster after an all-nighter Damon threw off the bedsheets and half ran, half threw himself across his room to his en-suite (thankful that there was no door standing between him and the adjoining annex because at that moment he would have gone through it in his haste to get to the toilet bowl in time).

Vomit is never fun, but it is even less pleasant when it's black as tar and stinks like rotted blood and stomach acid. Five minutes later, dry heaving and head pounding like a damned mariachi band had set up band-camp in his cerebral cortex Damon pushed back from the toilet and scooted back a little so he could rest his back against the cool porcelain of the tub. His ribs burned, his throat felt like he'd imbibed a couple of litres of sulphuric acid just for kicks and strange yellow and green splodges, reminiscent of those ink-blotch drawings psychiatrists used to use to tell how crazy someone was, kept falling like rain in front of his stinging eyes. Tilting his head back, while trying not to taste the filth coating his teeth, Damon moaned low in his throat. He felt like shit, or to use that oh-so-ironic adage, he felt like death warmed over. _Dying _had not felt as bad as this did. How was it possible that he felt like crap to the ends of his freaking hair? He was dead; he was supposed to be immune to this stuff.

Eventually, after a few moments of waiting to see if his internal organs were planning any more cute little surprises (diarrhoea anyone?) Damon levered himself up and stumbled towards the shower. His skin felt hot and itchy and a permanent twitch had started between his shoulder-blades making him fidget like a horse attacked by horseflies. After showering, ignoring the way his skull felt like it was sliding apart in pieces every time he moved his head, Damon brushed his teeth a half dozen times and gargled a couple of capfuls of mouthwash until his gums went numb, eradicating the last of the vomit taste from his mouth. Shaving and dressing proved to be a chore he seriously doubted was worth the effort except for the fact that he had a Council meeting sometime this afternoon (if it wasn't afternoon already) and he had an image as a conscientious white-hat town saviour to maintain; skipping out on a meeting he was supposed to be chairing just wasn't an option.

(Damnit but he missed the days when he was the big bad of this town. No one expected him to go to _committee meetings _in those days. How was it that _he_ was the one doing this stuff? Stefan was the actual Galahad-wannabe, after all.)

Washed, dressed, and as fit for polite society as he was ever going to get Damon walked out of his room and made the (way longer than he remembered it) trek down the hallway to the stairs. It occurred to him as he gripped the banister rail that it was probably not a good thing that the walls appeared to be melting and the floor of the entranceway seemed to suppurate like a carpet of maggots having an orgy. Still his mind was mostly filled with just getting down the stairs (and since when did going down a single flight of stairs make him wheeze like a fat, fifty-something-year-old with a thirty-a-day habit?)

Once he reached the bottom of the stairs he stopped, one hand still clutching the banister while the fingers of his other hand tried to massage out the persistent stabbing pain jabbing away at him behind his eyes. His brain felt swollen, his _actual_ brain. Even for a dead guy that could not be good. Dully he wondered where Stefan was, because there was clearly something not right going on here and his little brother should know about it. It was even possible (though not likely) that Stefan might have an explanation.

_He'll be out in the paddock with his journal. He likes to write under the old oak, the one with the knothole in the trunk. Or he might have ridden out to town with father to visit Mister Gilbert. _

Right..._what?_ As soon as the thought had come to him Damon felt a wash of incredulity flood him. Where the hell had that thought come from? Father was dead, the old paddock was now a dunk'n'donuts and why was he even thinking these thoughts in the first place? Yet for just a moment it had seemed real; the old oak, the thought of being home at the Salvatore estate. So real in fact that looking around the familiar confines of the boarding house Damon suddenly felt out of place and cut a drift. The pain in his head would not quit and his throat was parched. Licking his dry lips with an equally dry tongue Damon wondered if he should call his brother.

_Call Stefan? How? There does not appear to be anyone in this house to hear me call. I wonder; does this boarding house not have a staff? Perhaps some house servants; it appears well cared for. _

It _was_ a rather grand place, Damon decided, walking over to the entranceway to the main parlour with its massive stone fireplace and elaborate crest of arms. He thought it was a little over-done personally and the windows did not allow sufficient light to enter the room, but he could certainly appreciate the wealth and grandeur on display. Walking around the room he wondered who owned the property; he knew everyone in the town but he was sure he had never visited this abode before. This seemed a little odd. Father had helped found this town after all, had set up a plantation when there was nothing for miles but forest and fallow fields (as he took great pains to remind both his sons on a regular basis). Giuseppe made it a point to visit with all the wealthy and influential settlers who came to town. Still perhaps he had made a visit with Stefan while Damon was away with General Groom's militia? Yes, this was probably so, and Damon himself must have come to make his own acquaintance with the owner now he was home from the war. Grimacing a little he hoped that he had not over-indulged in regards the after dinner aperitifs and disgraced himself. Considering the intolerable pain in his head it was perfectly plausible. He would have to offer apologies, (as well as thanking the man for allowing him to stay the night as a guest) to the master of the house as soon as the kind sir returned.

Resolved to his course of action and still feeling somewhat out of sorts (really, he was not in the army anymore he must make an effort to stop drinking quite so much) Damon slipped into one of the large wingback chairs facing the cold fire place and closed his eyes gratefully. His return home had not been without its difficulties, not that he had expected Father to accept his choices with good grace, but he did not regret escaping the unending carnage and the vicious pointlessness of the war. He had done only what he had to do to save not just his life, which was perhaps the least important fact, but rather he had to leave to preserve the last of his honour and integrity. Compared to the slow erosion of his morals he had experienced in those endless months of starvation, futile infantry charges, and trench misery, being considered a traitor and deserter by a bunch of well-heeled old men who had never seen the light die in a man's eyes inches from their faces, was as nothing. At least Stefan supported him. It was good to know his absence had not weakened the affection he shared with his brother. If nothing else Damon kept a civil tongue in his head for his brother's sake. Stefan did not deserve to be caught up in the acrimony that ever brewed between Father and him.

The sound of a door opening snapped Damon to attention, his muscles suddenly a-fire with the same twitchy reflex he had learned in the army and had yet to shake now he was far from the battlefield. He jumped to his feet, swaying for a moment as pain blossomed behind his eyes, and was at the doorway to the main entranceway in less time than it took to tell of it.

A man slipped into the house. He was of good height and build and wore his hair cropped close to his head. He had an honest and open expression in his clear eyes that Damon thought spoke of a trustworthy and forthright character. Still the man seemed surprised to see Damon hovering in the threshold between the parlour and the entranceway.

"Damon?" The man questioned as his hand moved with careful casualness to his trouser pocket, "Is something wrong?" The man's eyes flicked over Damon; up and down and then up again. His amiable expression shifted into something less open and something in his posture suggested this man could handle himself in a fight.

"I..." Damon began, his throat hoarse. He licked his lips once again frowning a little as he cut his tongue against sharp canines. He cleared his throat and fell back on the manners his father had literally beaten into him. "Forgive me sir, but you appear to have me at a disadvantage. Have we met?"

The man blinked then, expression cracking open in complete surprise before closing down into disapproval, "That's a joke right?"

The man strode further into the hallway; sensing something almost aggressive in the man's approach Damon shifted back a half step. He was not one to shy away from a fight, but he would prefer not to start something simply over a case of mistaken identity. He cocked his head to the side and offered the man a slight smile (which seemed to unnerve his visitor more than assure him) "Oh I'm quite serious, sir. I have absolutely no idea who you are." When the man stopped short in his approach and blinked at him again Damon seized the opportunity to continue. "In fact could you tell me who the master of this house is? I'm afraid I seem to have...misplaced my memory."

The fair haired man stared at him for a long, long moment. Damon stood passively by under that scrutinising stare and wondered vaguely why the taste of his own blood in his mouth caused his stomach to cramp and his gums to ache. His head, needless to say, continued to pound incessantly. Finally the man spoke.

"Well damn," he breathed out, "this can't be good."

Damon wholeheartedly agreed.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: To everyone who has reviewed and/or favourited and put this story on alert: thank you. I hope you enjoy this next chapter ;)_

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_First encounter with a ghost_

Alaric knew something was wrong as soon as he saw Damon. Or more to the point as soon as he saw Damon with blood darkening the sclera of his eyes and veins prominent across the delicate skin of his cheeks; the fangs indenting his bottom lip were also a giveaway that the elder Salvatore was feeling a mite...vampy. Still Damon didn't jump him where he stood and while Alaric's hand moved towards the vial of concentrated vervain essence he kept in his pants pocket (just because he voluntarily hung out with vampires was no reason to be careless) he didn't turn tail and run. Admittedly this was mostly so he didn't trigger in Damon the predator urge to chase prey more than it was a show of bravado or genuine confidence that the vampire wouldn't hurt him.

"Damon?" He queried noticing the slightly puzzled look on the other man's face now that he could see beyond the vampire tells. "Is something wrong?" He almost rolled his eyes at that. Obviously something was wrong because Damon was silent, staring at him in a way he'd never seen before and _fanged_. Dazedly it occurred to Alaric that he had never actually seen Damon with his 'vamp-face' on. Interestingly his...sometime ally...usually did his killing looking disturbingly human. Alaric had always thought that was one of Damon's more unnerving characteristics, which was saying something considering the man was a borderline psychotic on his good days and a lethal force of nature on his worst. Now however he had to amend this view, vamped-out (silent and non-smirking) Damon was much more unnerving.

"I..." Alaric watched, fascinated, as Damon stirred, tongue darting out around his fangs as he licked his lips in a gesture that smacked of nervousness. _Nervous_! Damon sounded nervous; Alaric hadn't thought the vampire was capable of nerves. This was a man who managed to be sarcastic while being tortured and mutilated, after all. He watched, unblinking, as Damon cleared his throat, which sounded raw, and spoke again, still wearing a strangely muted but nevertheless befuddled look on his face that Alaric was sure he'd never seen before.

"Forgive me sir, but you appear to have me at a disadvantage. Have we met?"

_What? _Alaric almost reeled back in surprise. It wasn't so much the words (although they were completely unlike Damon. _Sir? _Damon called him sir?) It was also the tone. The stiff, stilted delivery, the way Damon drew back his shoulders and stood a little straighter, and the flicker of something like unease creeping into those bloodied eyes. He spluttered out something about this being a joke, just waiting for that shit-eater grin to smother Damon's face and for the other to dance forward and crow about how he had Alaric going there, didn't he, and – well- to basically be Damon being his usually dick self. Yet something in his hindbrain told him this wasn't a joke even before Damon pulled back his lips in a (really creepy) fanged grimace and insisted that he _was_ serious and, by the way, he was suffering a bout of amnesia as well.

"Well damn; this can't be good."

Now Alaric liked to think he was a man who could roll with the punches, go with the flow, be one with the twists and turns life threw at him. After all he was sort-of friends with the man who had slept with, killed, and turned his wife into a vampire – but even he needed a moment to get his head around this development. Unfortunately it looked like the increasingly agitated vampire pacing the floor of the boarding house parlour was looking to him to be the voice of reason in the midst of this mess.

"...And you see sir, I'm not sure quite how I came to be here. My head pains me and I thought perhaps I had drunk too much, but now I cannot remember a single facet of the night previous and that is not normal. I can hold my liquor sir; I was one of General Groom's boys – it was considered mandatory that a solider be able to hold his whiskey."

Damon paced by one of the wide windows of the parlour, his fingers tangling in the heavy drapes almost unconsciously. He turned a beseeching look upon Alaric. "Sir, you seem to know me. Tell me, who are you? How is that we have met – and do you know why I cannot remember?"

"I...uh...my name's Alaric Saltzman." He began mind spinning as he tried to understand what on Earth was going on. "We're sort of...well, I guess we're sort of friends." He winced, it was one thing to accept privately, on an intellectual level, that he and Damon were – friendly – with each other and that it was unlikely that they'd ever try and kill each other again, but it was another to say it out loud. This was especially true as Damon tended to react badly to the mere intimation that he was capable of friendship or that he desired the company of others.

"Friends?" The vampire stopped blurring around the room like a trapped blue-bottle fly and turned to face Alaric. He cocked his head to the side, his eyes still bloody and his skin still mottled by the faint tracery of darkened veins, which gave the always predatory gesture a slightly more feral quality than usual. Until the man smiled, that is, "Oh, I'm glad to hear it."

He blurred forward and Alaric almost fell into one of the wingback chairs as Damon stood right in his personal space and grabbed one of his hands, shaking it firmly while grasping his forearm with his free hand. "Did we serve together, Alaric? Is that how we met, because I am sure there are no Saltzmans living in town...and may I call you Ric?" The jovial grin alighting Damon's face would have been a little more effective without the addition of fangs, but it almost seemed like Damon hadn't noticed them or the fact that he was cutting his own lips, so Alaric decided that he probably wasn't about to rip his throat out right this moment.

"...You usually do call me Ric," He said awkwardly, mind busy processing everything Damon had said so far for clues as to what was wrong with him – because clearly there was something very wrong with the vampire. "And no, there are no other Saltzmans in Mystic Falls." He paused and carefully extracted his arm from Damon's grip and after a moment the other man caught a clue and stepped back a polite distance, looking a little abashed at his abuse of boundaries (which was so unlike him Alaric immediately chalked it up as another clue that _Damon was not himself_).

He cleared his throat and attempted a reassuring smile he was sure ended up more like a sickened grimace. "Why don't you tell me what you do remember, Damon; I can try and fill in the gaps that way."

Blood stained eyes widened and another bright and engaging grin lit up his face, "Good idea." Damon started pacing again as he spoke. "Well the year is...it is...I came home from the army...and..." The vampire frowned words petering out and expression falling. He lifted one hand to rake fingers through his dark bangs. "I...Damnit! My head hurts!" Whirling around suddenly Damon's arm lashed out with blinding speed and before Alaric knew it an ornate Tiffany lamp was lying in pieces across the room – having been hurled at the far wall too fast for him to follow. Alaric's hand had already grabbed up the vial of vervain as Damon spun on him, face twisting in an animalistic snarl.

"This noise is abominable."

An end table joined the shards of broken lamp across the room as Damon grabbed at his head with both hands and resumed his pacing. "There is this...this...goddamned _thumping _noise and it keeps getting louder and faster and it's...it's driving me to distraction!"

Alaric swallowed, throat pulsing as his heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. His eyes swept around the room for any convenient weaponry and he spied an old cavalry officer's sword mounted to the wall near the entranceway. Eyeing Damon all the while he started to edge towards the sword – and the front door.

Across the room, seemingly oblivious to Alaric's intentions, Damon was still ranting. "It is...it is like someone has placed a metronome inside my skull; all I can hear is this rhythmic beat. It..." The vampire's head jerked up, his spine went rigid and his neck turned slowly, bringing the vampire's head with it, all in one movement. Alaric froze, a few feet from the cavalry sword. He watched as crimson and blue eyes narrowed fixedly on him. "It's coming from you." The vampire growled.

The roof of Alaric's mouth was so dry he wasn't sure he would be able to make a sound. "It's my heart." He croaked, coughing and speaking a little louder. "You're hearing my heart beat."

The vampire blinked, body uncoiling from the predatory near crouch he had fallen into seemingly without conscious thought. "I beg your pardon?"

If he hadn't been facing down a vampire who was possibly even more deranged than his usual self at this moment, Alaric might have found the slightly scandalised and incredulous look adorning Damon's face funny. As it was he merely maintained eye contact and kept his voice low and steady. "It's true. What you're hearing is my heartbeat. It picked up because I was...nervous."

Damon's face creased in utter confusion, "But you're all the way over there. How could I possibly hear your heartbeat? How could it be so loud? It's almost deafening me."

"You're a vampire," Alaric said, gently, even as he readied his muscles to run like hell if Damon so much as twitched in his direction.

"That's absurd," the vampire snapped looking almost offended, his posture becoming stiff and unnatural, rather like a man squaring up to answer a challenge against his honour. "I am not a..." he trailed off then, one hand lifting to touch fingers to his lips, or more accurately to the sharpened teeth nipping the skin. To Alaric the range of expression that passed like a summer rain storm across the other man's face was truly intriguing. There was shock, recognition, something like burgeoning delight, then a complex mixture of worry and doubt – and those were just the recognisable emotional outputs he could read. Finally Damon's expressive face settled on a look of blank anxiety.

"Excuse me," the vampire muttered, ducking his head abashedly before blurring out of the parlour right past Alaric. Alaric immediately (and perhaps stupidly) turned to follow the vampire who disappeared into the downstairs restroom. From the doorway Alaric watched, with open bemusement, as Damon examined his vampiric countenance with wide startled eyes. "Mary mother of God," he breathed out, not irreverently. "I Turned. I really Turned...but I...but she said I must die before..." in the reflective surface of the mirror Alaric could see dawning recognition. "I..._died_."

Alaric winced, "Yes...you've um...you've been dead for a, well, let's just say it's been a while."

The look Damon gave him when the confused vampire finally turned away from the mirror was bound to haunt Alaric for a long time to come. There was something so...naked...about it. It wasn't exactly horror, nor was there much in the way of grief, but instead Damon looked drawn and wane. His shoulders slumped, and he sagged in on himself. It was like all the life and animation left his body as he hung his head, hands loose and limp at his sides. Then something at once fired to life and hardened in those blood rimmed eyes. "Katherine," Damon breathed out head snapping up. "Where is Katherine?"

In a flash he was in Alaric's face again, hands like steel clutching at Alaric's shoulders as he shoved him into the wall outside the restroom. "Tell me," eyes blazing, Damon's intensity hit him like a wrecking ball, "Where is she? Where is Katherine? Why would she not be here? If I'm Turned then she must have..." Damon gnawed on his bottom lip even as he spat out words like bullets, "She said this was the only way we could be together. She was to show me the world. She promised." Alaric winced as Damon's fingers convulsed reflexively around his shoulders and he kept the vervain palmed in his hand. He wouldn't use it until absolutely necessary, but if Damon didn't let him go soon...

"Ric," the vampire spoke his name as if it was foreign to him, "if you are my friend you will tell me where Katherine is, or so help me..."

_Shit, shit, shit_; there was no way in hell Alaric was going to tell Damon the whole sorry story about Katherine and how badly she had played him. He might have a ring that gave him a mortality free pass but that didn't mean he enjoyed being stabbed, bitten, or otherwise murdered...and that was certainly what would happen if he told Damon the woman he had given up his life for one hundred and forty-six years ago had only ever lied to and used him. The first time he found out Damon had lost it completely and ended up snapping Jeremy Gilbert's neck, Alaric highly doubted the vampire would handle the situation any better a second time around. And the only available neck to snap this time was Alaric's own.

Alaric opened his mouth planning to say anything to buy time while completely ready to chuck the content of the vial into Damon's eyes before getting the fuck out of the boarding house when a sharp buzzing noise sliced through the charged atmosphere. Damon flinched, releasing Alaric and stepping back, before groping for his jeans back pocket and pulling out his ringing cell phone.

"What the hell is this?" The bemused vampire asked him, holding the phone in the same way Alaric might handle a grenade without its pin. His face twisted into an odd grimace. "And why was it...vibrating...in my trousers?"

Blue eyes stared into his expectantly and, completely inappropriately, all Alaric could think to do in response was to burst into peals of (near hysterical) laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Wow, two chapters posted in a day. I blame all the wonderful reviews y'all are giving me ;) Oh, and get ready for this story's first cliff-hanger!_

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_Monster revival_

"...And with this device I can speak with anyone, even if they are miles away, just by pressing a few numbered buttons?"

"Yes," Alaric took the cell phone from Damon's hand once again. He had already switched the phone off, cutting dead the incoming call from Sheriff Forbes. He felt a little guilty about that, it might have been important after all, but there was just no way Damon could answer a call from the Sheriff at the moment. Now he was trying to herd Damon down towards the basement where the Salvatore's kept their blood supply and, more importantly, their basement cell. Distracted by the wonders of twenty-first century technology Damon seemed to have forgotten all about Katherine and instead kept pestering him with questions.

"...And the device is called a... cell phone...that's what you said, correct?" Damon trailed Alaric's heels like a bounding puppy. "Is it witchcraft? Did Miss Emily spell this device, because I have never heard of anything so marvellous in my life."

Alaric closed his eyes and counted backwards from five in his head, "It's not witchcraft Damon...it's...well how it works isn't important right now." He reached the doorway to the old servant stairwell leading down to the basement. "Look, I think you need blood. If you drink some it might help clear your head."

Damon looked doubtful. "Clearing my head isn't exactly the problem, is it?" He retorted dryly. "My head _is_ clear – clear of anything remotely like memory to be exact." The vampire crossed his arms over his chest and regarded Alaric coolly. "And don't think I've missed the fact that you are deliberately evading any mention of Katherine. I may not remember much but I'm not a fool, Ric."

Alaric sighed, "Right, I suppose it was too much to hope that you'd forgotten." He met Damon's eyes, which while still splotched with blood were at least a little less drowned in it. The veins underlying his skin were also less prominent and his fangs had retracted. Alaric decided this was probably a good thing, although the sweat beading on Damon's top lip and the chalky pallor of his skin was not. "Look," he tried again. "Just come with me to get some blood. If it doesn't help you remember on your own I'll answer any questions you have." Alaric winced, fingers playing with the ring Isobel had given him. He could not believe he was doing this. Really he had to have a death wish, there was no other explanation.

"I don't hear any other heartbeats," the vampire said, apropos of nothing as far as Alaric was concerned as they descended the steep, poorly lit basement stairs.

"What?" Alaric kept one hand out, palm pressed flat to the wall as he kept going down.

"I don't hear any heartbeats – you said there was blood down here. Unless you intend for me to drain you, I don't know where you expect to find blood." Damon pointed out reasonably, absently snagging the back of Alaric's shirt when his foot slipped on one of the steps; Alaric nodded his thanks over his shoulder to the vampire and stepped down into the basement proper.

"There's blood in the freezer down here," he explained to Damon who continued to look puzzled and Alaric supposed that was to be expected. Neither freezers nor blood banks had existed in the 1860's after all. It gave Alaric a headache just thinking about how much of the trivial details he'd have to explain to Damon if he didn't start remembering on his own. The man was pushing a hundred and seventy, by Alaric's reckoning, that was a hell of a lot of human development and progress to go through.

When they reached the freezer chest in the utility room Damon's eyes swept over it and the rest of the room keenly. "You said I'd been dead a while." Damon looked at him shrewdly and for the first time Alaric thought he saw something of the Damon he knew in his intense eyes. "I was in possession of a device capable of something I hadn't dreamed possible, and we are both dressed in attire that is very different from what I'm used to." Damon pursed his lips. "I'm not in 1864 anymore am I Ric?"

"No," Alaric felt himself relax marginally, almost glad that Damon was putting the pieces together himself. "I was trying to work out how to break it to you gently." He admitted.

"In case I ate you in a state of pique?" The vampire's lips curved up in a much more familiar smirk before he shook his head. "No need to worry; you said we're friends. What sort of man would I be if I went around eating my friends?"

Alaric opened and then closed his mouth with an audible click of teeth. It would probably be best if that question remained rhetorical. Thankfully Damon did not seem to notice his reaction. Instead he went over and opened the freezer chest, peering inside curiously.

"Well, well," he breathed looking over the blood in its little plastic bags lining the freezer. "Either vampires have become an accepted part of civil society in this time, or I must be a permanent resident of this boarding house." Damon gave him an appraising look. Alaric smiled. Damon seemed more like himself, sharp and quick on the uptake and he found himself relaxing for the first time since entering the boarding house.

"You own this property...although it's not an active boarding house at the moment." Alaric frowned. "In fact it's interesting you knew it used to be a boarding house. Perhaps your memory is coming back?"

"Not even close," the vampire scoffed plucking a blood bag from the chest and looking at it quizzically. "How do you even get the blood into these little sacks?"

Alaric swallowed a smirk, "It's...complicated. Let's just say that modern medicine is very different from what you remember from the nineteenth century."

Damon quirked an eyebrow. "Really? Well considering most doctors I remember were quacks or saw-bones I'll choose to take that ambiguous statement as a good thing." He flapped the blood bag between his fingers, "Looks like it's a good time to be a vampire, at any rate." He found the way to open the bag but paused before taking a sip. "Who won the war?"

Alaric frowned, "The war? Which war?"

Damon rolled his eyes, "_The War_; the great rising of the south against our northern aggressors." Distain and contempt dripped from Damon's lips as he scowled. "It was the Yankee's wasn't it? Had to be; General Lee and his cronies couldn't tell their asses from their elbows. I refuse to believe the Confederacy won. Not unless things changed markedly after I left the ranks."

"Oh," Alaric blinked in surprise before remembering that Damon and Stefan had lived through the Civil War period. "No...I mean, yes, the north won. We now live in the United States of America." He paused as something clicked in his mind. "Wait – you fought in the Civil War?"

Damon nodded tiredly, "For two and a half miserable years." He sighed. "Good to know I was right to get the hell out of that fucking mess when I did. After Cold Harbor...well, let's just say any illusions I still possessed about the honour of war were soundly banished after that disaster of a battle."

Alaric could feel his jaw unhinge slightly, "You fought at the battle of Cold Harbor?" His inner history geek began bouncing around inside his brain as a certain aggrieved incredulity caused Alaric to completely forget the present circumstances. "Why didn't you tell me? For God's sake Damon! I'm a history graduate; I wrote my thesis on the war. I can't believe you never mentioned you were an actual Civil War vet."

Damon was given him a very sceptical look, "Ric, I don't even know what year this is. How am I supposed to know why I didn't tell you something? I don't even remember being friends with you." He lifted the blood bag to his lips, "Did you ever ask me? I'm not proud of my time in the war, but I wouldn't lie about it either."

"Point taken. Well maybe..." Alaric began planning on asking Damon to tell him about the Confederacy in exchange for more information on the present, perfectly prepared to risk his neck for a firsthand account of the Civil War even if it meant braving the Katherine debacle, but at that moment Damon tilted the blood bag up to his mouth and took a swallow.

"..._Fuck!" _The vampire doubled up, violently spitting out the blood he'd just imbibed all over the floor. Grasping his abdomen Damon collapsed to one knee, face contorted in pain. "Are you trying to kill me?" Wild blue eyes skewed Alaric. "I can't drink that – it burns!"

"What?" Alaric moved forward before he could think better of it as a strangled moan escaped Damon's throat and he folded up so his forehead was almost touching his knees. He coughed, gasping and shuddering on the floor. For a handful of moments all Alaric could do was watch as Damon choked, spat blood, and shivered on the floor of the basement occasionally cursing when he could catch his breath. Finally his shaking seemed to subside and his breathing evened out. The vampire lifted his head and uncoiled off the floor, absently wiping the blood and spit from his chin with the back of one hand as he looked around. There was something about the tilt of his head that sent warning bells to ringing in Alaric's lizard brain.

"Uh...Damon, you alright?"

The vampire's head snapped around, blue eyes heavy-lidded as he looked Alaric up and down. "Who are you?" Damon asked him prowling forward on silent feet, a strange smile playing around the edges of his lips, "And what are you doing in my basement?"

_Oh you've got to be kidding me, _Alaric almost groaned aloud, were they seriously going to have to do this again? "I'm Alaric Saltzman. We're...sort of friends." He began as Damon pushed into his personal space, still staring at him like a cat sizing up the canary.

"Friends?" The vampire's face contorted into a grimace of complete disbelief and then Alaric found himself slammed up against the far wall of the utility room with Damon's hand lodged under his chin, fingers digging in painfully. "Are you retarded? I don't have friends." The vampire leaned in, eyes sweeping over Alaric's neck as he breathed against his ear. "Are you one of dear Uncle Joey's boy-toys? Because I have news for you...Joseph doesn't _live_ here anymore." Alaric could feel Damon's savage smirk against the shell of his ear, "In fact Joseph doesn't live anywhere anymore. Tragic really; he fell down the stairs...broke his neck...and pretty much every other bone in his body."

"I'm guessing...he had a little...help...with that." Alaric choked out, one hand trying in vain to pry Damon's from his throat while the other fished in his pocket for his vial of vervain. He had no idea who Joseph was, other than he was clearly one of Damon's victims, and considering Damon had been running around killing people for most (if not all) his undead existence Alaric really didn't have a clue what time period Damon had regressed to this time – except that he was clearly well advanced in his particular brand of raging psychosis.

"Oh what's this?" Damon drew back a little so he could peer into his eyes, eerie crazy-person smirk still firmly in place, "Are you talking back to me? Are you really that stupid?"

Fingers absently kneading the delicate skin of Alaric's neck (and feeling out the equally fragile bones of his spine) Damon's eyes widened in a parody of thoughtfulness, "Are you one of Stefan's cute little human friends? Did my baby brother come crying to you about how his big, bad brother came home and threw poor, dear Unky-Joe down the stairs?" Damon's smile widened even further, fangs peeking out. "Imagine his face when he finds you dead too. Just like a kicked puppy. I wonder if he'll cry – I love it when he weeps manly tears of inconsolable grief for the loss of human life." Almost impishly Damon jerked Alaric's head from side to side using the grip on his throat as leverage. "I think I'm going to pull out your spine through your mouth. I haven't done that since '38."

The vampire's hand squeezed down on Alaric's throat, fingernails digging in like blunt scalpels. Alaric shoved the vial of vervain into Damon's face, mashing the breakable glass and toxic-to-vampires liquid into his eyes. Smoke rose, skin blistered instantly and Damon howled, staggering backward and clawing at his bleeding eyes. Alaric ran.

"You little -!"

Alaric was pounding up the stairs to the main house when Damon had recovered enough to give chase. Alaric slammed shut the door to the basement stairs and threw the deadbolt even as the vampire threw his weight against it. The door shuddered in its frame as Damon pounded on it. Alaric continued through the house at a sprint. He was at the front door when he heard the crash of the basement stair door breaking open. He wrenched the front door open, freedom and sunlight pouring in. Something hit him in the back in a flying tackle sending him sailing through the air to hit the gravel of the boarding house driveway. Strong arms yanked him over on his back.

"I am going to _feed_ you your spleen you asshole." Coldly furious, skin burned and red raw around his eyes Damon sat on Alaric's chest, a cruel smile spreading like poison over his lips. "I am going to rip out your eyes and play golf with them, hear me? And then I'll feed you some of my blood so you don't die before _skinning_ you one layer at a time."

Alaric swallowed. While he was fairly sure the disgusting drawn out death Damon had just mentioned was covered under the whole supernatural cause of death clause needed to activate the power of his ring, Alaric had absolutely no desire to experience even a moment of it. His mind raced, he needed a distraction, something to stop Damon killing him until he could figure out how to incapacitate or talk sense back into the vampire.

"...Katherine." He blurted out.

"What did you say?" Alaric wasn't sure how it was possible but Damon appeared even more deranged at that moment, pale eyes impossibly wide and lips half skinned back from his teeth.

"Katherine...I have information about Katherine."

Some rapid indiscernible fission of emotion passed over Damon's face for a split second before his features fell back into that maniacal smirk, "Well, well Stefan's been blabbing family secrets again, hasn't he? Tsk, he just doesn't learn."

Damon lowered himself down over Alaric until he was breathing in his face, "Katherine's gone...and it's _all Stefan's fault_."His face twisted in feral hate before smoothing out again. "Now I'm going to kill you, _bloodily_, and send my brother the pieces so he learns to stop tattling to strangers."

Frantic Alaric tried again, "The tomb...under the ruins of Fell's Church. That's where Emily's spell put the vampires caught in the round up."

Damon froze and for a moment Alaric thought he might have gotten through to the vampire. Then all thoughts were lost as his body careened through the air. He felt the jarring impact as he slammed into something hard and ungiving. He was sliding bonelessly down the side of his car when Damon grabbed him and slammed him down on the hood. "Talk fast before I rip your god-damn heart out." The vampire snarled eyes blazing.

Alaric sucked in a breath and figured he really had nothing to lose with this gambit, "Katherine's not in the tomb, Damon. She escaped the round-up in 1864." He saw Damon's eyes widening, saw the instant denial forming on his lips, and rushed forward. "She sent me to find you." He lifted his arm with the spelled ring. "This ring...it protects me from supernatural violence. You can't kill me." He willed Damon to believe him as he cobbled together lies he hoped sounded more convincing to the maddened vampire than they did to him. "Emily made it for Katherine years ago and she gave it to me. Who else but a Bennett witch could make something like this?"

Damon stared from Alaric's face to the ring, grabbing his hand and staring intently. Alaric found himself hoping that Damon didn't think to yank the ring off his finger, because he'd be _so_ screwed if that happened.

"You're lying." Damon bit out. "I saw her taken...I..." doubt and something painfully like hope crossed his face as Damon loosened his grip on Alaric's shirt slightly. Alaric licked his lips. If it wasn't for the fact that he was trying to save his own life here, he thought he might actually feel like a jerk about playing Damon like this. Oh well, if neither one of them died he'd buy the vampire a beer at the Grill to make up for it.

"I could explain," He wheedled pushing his advantage while Damon appeared moderately less homicidal "...or I could just take you to Katherine and let her do it."

Seeing the hope ignite behind Damon's fevered eyes was actually painful, "Where," he ground out, "Where is she?"

Alaric opened his mouth ready to continue bullshitting Damon until he could calm him down or knock him out somehow when the sound of a car driving up the driveway distracted them both. Alaric's heart sank even as his mind exploded in panic as he recognised _Elena's_ car.

There was _no way_ in hell this was going to end well.


	4. Chapter 4

_Fever in the blood_

Elena was just finishing up the last few bites of her hamburger when Sheriff Forbes stopped by their table at the Grill.

"Stefan, Elena, sorry to bother you while you're eating," the older woman began and Elena smiled around her half chewed mouthful as Stefan greeted the woman who had once strung him up in a basement and shot him with perfect politeness.

"Sheriff Forbes, is something wrong?" Only someone who knew Stefan well would be able to see the slight tension in his shoulders as he spoke. Elena dabbed her lips with her napkin and took a swallow of her soda, eyes flicking between the Sheriff and her boyfriend.

"Actually I was hoping you'd be able to tell me," as always Sheriff Forbes was blunt and to the point, "Damon didn't show up to a…meeting…with Mayor Lockwood and some of the civic leaders this morning, and I was wondering if he was sick or had been called out of town at the last minute?" Sheriff Forbes tapped her fingers against her holster belt, a slight line forming between her brows. "I've tried his cell a couple of times and it bounces straight to voice-mail. I admit I'm concerned. This isn't like Damon."

Elena looked sharply towards Stefan as it was pretty obvious what "meeting" Damon had skipped out on: a Founders Council meeting. Considering how narrowly both brothers had avoided being exposed as vampires a few months back it definitely raised red flags in Elena's mind that Damon would miss a meeting. Stefan had obviously come to the same conclusion if the tension around his eyes was any indication.

"Damon seemed fine last night," Stefan told the Sheriff. "I left the house before he was up this morning, though. I haven't seen him all day." He fished his phone out of his pocket and speed-dialled Damon's number, "Let me try and reach him. If he doesn't pick up I'll swing by home and see if he's there."

"Thank you Stefan," Liz Forbes smiled tightly – or at least tried to, "The meeting this morning was important, and what's odd is that I spoke to Damon day before yesterday and he seemed keen for us to meet; said he had something he needed to raise." She shook her head. "It just doesn't make sense."

Elena feeling mostly ignored but not offended, watched Stefan as he called Damon. Ordinarily she might have tried to make small talk with Caroline's mom, but Liz Forbes was notoriously bad at small talk especially when she was on duty and Elena didn't want to distract Stefan from his call. Instead she offered the older woman a reassuring smile and simply waited.

"That's...weird," Stefan said a moment later putting his phone away. "He's not answering. His phone must be switched off." Stefan tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. "I know Damon takes his…work…for the Mayor seriously. I don't know what could have come up to make him miss a meeting." He started to rise from the table. "I'll stop by the boarding house now, try to find Damon."

Stefan's expression had already developed that strange opaque distance Caroline called his "thinking face". Elena knew his mind was rapidly processing all the reasons why Damon would go incommunicado without warning. Elena was doing the same and none of the scenarios her mind created were in any way good. Damon was kind of the poster child for idle play boys everywhere, but he had always seemed oddly diligent about staying in step with the Council, plus he genuinely liked Liz. The Sheriff was right, this just wasn't like him.

"Thank you Stefan. I was thinking of swinging by the boarding house myself but if you could tell him to call me instead?" Liz Forbes relaxed marginally and this time her smile was a little more genuine.

"I will," Stefan nodded, "I'm sure Damon has a good reason for missing the meeting." He added, mostly for the sake of maintaining the cover story that protected both brothers. Sheriff Forbes nodded, but her eyes were still troubled as she left the Grill.

Elena watched her go and then immediately turned to Stefan. "Why would Damon skip a Council meeting?"

"I don't know," Stefan dropped a few crumpled bills down on the table to cover their lunch and started out the Grill. "Do you mind dropping me off at the boarding house? I know we were going to spend the afternoon working on our English essays at your house but…"

"It's fine Stefan. We need to find Damon. There could be something wrong." Elena hurried towards her car, not really sure where her sense of urgency was coming from, except that she had a bad feeling brewing in her gut; after everything that had happened since Katherine's return to Mystic Falls Elena had come to trust her intuition.

"_Wrong _is sort of synonymous with Damon. That and _trouble_." Stefan pointed out tiredly as he slipped into the passenger seat. Elena bit her lip on a grim smile.

"Maybe, but Sheriff Forbes is right. This isn't like him."

Elena pulled out from the parking space. The last year had been the most _tumultuous_ of her life, and that was understating it a lot. Her parents died, she met Stefan, discovered vampires and werewolves were real, met her own identical ancestress and became a living breathing sacrificial lamb in the plans of the world's scariest Original vampire. Still, for the last several weeks things had been calm. The only vampires in town were her friends, the werewolves were gone, Klaus and Elijah were gone, and Katherine was no longer an issue in their lives. The pessimistic part of Elena figured they were overdue some new drama in their lives. God forbid life in Mystic Falls ever be normal.

"It's probably nothing." Stefan said once they were on the road leading to the boarding house. "Damon just forgot the meeting or decided that he needs to remind us all how unreliable he is by skipping a meeting and jeopardising the cover he worked to build."

Elena gave him a look. "You don't believe that."

"No I don't," Stefan admitted with a wry smile, "but I thought I'd try and be optimistic all the same." His smile widened a little. "Be less broody, you know?"

Elena smiled as she turned up the long driveway leading to the boarding house, "You need more practice." She reached out a hand to pat his knee, "Anyway I love your brooding." Her lips twisted impishly, "Most of the time."

"Thanks," Stefan retorted dryly. "At least it's not Tuesday."

"Oh yes," Elena rolled her eyes, "We all know you have issues with Tuesdays."

"Bad things happen to me on Tuesdays," Stefan insisted completely deadpan, "I have the statistics to prove it."

Elena chuckled softly as the grand façade of the boarding house came into view, but the laughter died in an instant when she saw the two figures out on the drive by the house's open front door. "Stefan…?" She began voice squeezed tight with alarm.

Through the windshield she could see Damon pinning Alaric to the hood of his car; the aggression and violence radiating from Damon was palpable. It seemed to rise off him like heat waves from asphalt. Instinctively Elena slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt as Damon released Alaric and turned towards them. Even from fifteen feet away she recognised the dark shadow of pulsing veins under his eyes and the way his jaw was slightly distended by a mouthful of fangs.

Beside her in the passenger seat Stefan had gone rigid, muscles quivering like a hunting dog straining on the leash. He released his seatbelt with an audible snap. "Elena – stay in the car."

"Wha…?" Elena whipped her head around to snap that she would do no such thing but Stefan was out of the car in a flash, slamming the door closed hard behind him as he rushed forward to check Damon's slow, disturbingly predatory approach. Back by his car Alaric was pushing himself off the hood; his grimace of pain obvious to Elena even over the distance between them. She couldn't even begin to imagine what could have happened to set Damon off and make him attack Alaric.

There was a flash of movement in front of the car that dragged Elena's attention back to the two vampires squaring off in front of her. Instantly Elena found herself captivated by a pair of impossibly pale, bloodshot eyes. Damon, standing five feet away from the front of her car, was staring straight at her through the flimsy veil of the windshield. Elena couldn't breathe, couldn't move, all she could do was sit behind the wheel of her car, fingers locked convulsively at ten and two, feeling like a deer in headlights as Damon stared at her like he'd never seen her before in his life. She saw his lips move as something like abject confusion stitched his brow. She saw his lips form the syllables of a single, hated word:

_Katherine. _

If she had been standing Elena might have collapsed to her knees right then and there, as it was the trapped breath in her lungs escaped in a pained gasp. Her mind reeled. Why had he called her Katherine? He was looking right at her and yet he used _her _name. He knew she wasn't Katherine…how could he confuse them _again_? Elena had a split second to be surprised at how hurt and insulted she felt before the sight of Stefan's broad back passing in front of the car, blocking Damon's view of her, broke the spell she had been under since first catching the eye of the elder Salvatore.

"Damon what's wrong with you? What are you doing?" Elena could only see Stefan's back but she could imagine his expression, tense and wary, from the careful alertness of his posture. A bolt of fear went through her to the core then. She hadn't heard Stefan use that tone of voice with Damon in months...not since Damon first came back to Mystic Falls and was actively trying to make his brother's life a living hell.

"You bastard," the guttural growl that she could only just hear was so different from Damon's familiar laconic drawl that Elena could barely believe that it _was_ Damon speaking. Straining her neck until her head pressed against the door window Elena was just able to catch a quick glimpse of a look of pure, icy, fury on Damon's pale (too pale?) face before Stefan side-stepped to block his brother once again.

"Why?" She heard ragged breathing and the scrape of gravel under foot as the two brothers circled each other, the need to match Damon's movement forcing Stefan out of her sightline. "Why is it always you?" A fine tremor was working its way through Damon's body and Elena could see the rapid rise and fall of his breathing through his sweat darkened v-neck t-shirt as he stared at Stefan with murder in his eyes.

"Why is what always me? Damon what the hell is going on?" Stefan held out his hands before him, gesture both placating and defensive. His eyes never left Damon's, his body screamed leashed tension. It was clear he expected Damon to attack him and was ready to retaliate. Hands shaking and feeling trapped in her car the way deep sea divers in a shark cage must feel trapped Elena reached out and opened the glove compartment.

"You betrayed her," Damon spat tossing his head like a horse fighting the reins, everything from his strangled voice, the wild look on his face and the jittery shiver of muscle evident under his clinging shirt screamed danger. "You ruined everything! Why would she go to _you_ first?" Rage and bitterness and so much heartache that it hurt her ears to hear filtered through Elena's awareness as she rifled through a compact mirror, a tube of lip gloss, and assorted other detritus in an increasingly desperate search for the object she knew had to be in the glove compartment somewhere. "Why Stefan? I worked so hard…I died for her…and you…"

_There it was! _Euphoric Elena's hand curled vice-like around the object: one of Alaric's patented vervain darts. Elena yanked the dart free gratefully and at that same instant something slammed into her car - hard. "Not this time brother – you take _everything_ – but you won't win this time."

Elena flinched back, arms coming up to protect her head and throwing herself back into the car seat. Her heart lodged somewhere at the back of her throat and refused to budge. She waited for the sound of shattering glass and the horror-movie grasping of hands trying to tear her out of the car. It didn't come. Finding her breath Elena opened her eyes and stared through the spiderweb latticework of cracks stretching out across her windshield.

Damon had charged Stefan, slamming him into her car and bending him backwards over the hood. Stefan was grappling with his brother, landing a punch to the underside of his jaw that caused Damon to stumble back a step. Stefan jumped forward advancing on Damon, who snarled and threw himself at his younger brother once more, causing both of them to go rolling across the gravel drive, almost directly under her car.

"Damon - _stop_ – she's not Katherine…!" Alaric was running awkwardly while clutching his left shoulder, across the gravel towards the tussling vampires. Elena could see the stark tension and worry on her history teacher's usually laid back face. She leapt out of the car. She had no idea what she planned to do, even less idea of what was happening or why, she just knew she had to stop whatever it was. She ran around the hood of her car, clutching the dart like a javelin, over arm, as if she might throw it or plunge it down into Damon's exposed back as he and Stefan struggled, kicking and biting and clawing for dominance, rolling over and over across the driveway like a couple of junk yard dogs.

"Damon – brother – for God's sake...Don't make me hurt you..." They rolled again and this time Stefan came up on top, his cheeks pock-marked by the abrasive gravel, fangs extended and eyes bloody, excited by the adrenalin of the fight. He fought to pin Damon who writhed and twisted underneath him, insensible and crazed and so blindly furious that not even broken bones would stop him from trying to kill his brother. Stefan ground Damon's face into the splintered rock of the driveway, twisted one of his arms behind his back painfully and bore down on him, straddling his hips as he tried to subdue his brother. Elena skittered on her toes a foot away, wanting to go forward that last step but sensible enough to realise that she would almost certainly be killed, or at least seriously injured, if she got in between the fighting brothers.

"Elena – now –the vervain – _use it_." Stefan turned his head fractionally as he called to her and in that split second's lapse of concentration Damon managed to buck up off the ground, twist like a snake and somehow hurl his brother off him. Stefan sailed five feet through the air and hit the ground hard, bouncing into a skin shredding roll a further two feet before he came to a stop. Damon was on him too fast for Elena to follow. In horror-heightened slow motion she saw Damon snatch Stefan up by the throat, wrench back his free hand, claw his fingers and shove his hand forward towards Stefan's chest – his intention as monstrous as it was obvious.

"Damon - NO!"

Her scream ripped her throat raw. The world froze; time stopped, and the universe held its breath for one awe filled moment. Damon stopped. Jerking to a halt like a puppet whose strings had been violently yanked; his clawed hand pressed against Stefan's diaphragm a literal heartbeat away from punching right through his brother's chest. Almost painfully slowly he turned his head, wide eyes fixed on hers. He dropped Stefan to the ground and took one faltering, unsteady step towards her. His lips parted as if he was about to speak.

It was then that the bloodied steel of a cavalry sword erupted up and out of his stomach. Damon jolted, stared down at the sword in complete surprise and collapsed to his knees, falling face first into the gravel even as Alaric yanked the sword out and drove it once again into his back, pinning Damon to the ground like an entomologist pinning a butterfly to a card.

Elena only realised she had fallen to her knees on the driveway right along with Damon when she registered the stinging bite of the gravel slicing through her jeans.


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Hello everyone, thank you all for the phenomenal response to this fic – I am incredibly flattered ;) Sadly this chapter is a bit exposition-y (a necessary evil) but it works to set up the next chapter which should be tons of fun._

* * *

_A brief return_

"Elena, the dart," Stefan coughed, spitting blood out of his mouth as he rushed forward to force his brother down to the ground by his shoulders. Alaric, leaning all his weight down on the sword was only just managing to keep Damon pinned as his brother struggled to lever himself up, ripping open wider holes in his stomach as he did so. The heavy copper reek of blood, even tainted as it was by the battery acid stench of vampire, hit Stefan like a physical weight.

"…damn it Stefan…leggo o' me…" Damon's feet kicked uselessly scattering pebbles and dust as he wriggled about trying to dislodge the sword. Alaric grunted feet slipping in the gravel as he bore down on the pommel. "I don't think I can hold on much longer," the history teacher admitted, licking sweat from his top lip and shifting his balance as Damon's hands clawed at the ground. Stefan saw the ripple of muscle in his brother's forearms and knew he was about to thrust upward in one powerful movement that would definitely knock Alaric off balance.

"Elena – now!" He forced Damon down with a hand to the back of his neck and another wedged between his shoulder-blades. Damon's skin was clammy with sweat and he was trembling with a mixture of exertion and delirium.

Another scattering of gravel heralded Elena's arrival. She threw herself down on Damon's other side, clasping the vervain dart in her hand. Her face was pale but composed as she drove the dart into the back of Damon's neck.

"…Noooooo," Damon groaned spine arching and forehead grinding into the jagged stone of the driveway as the vervain flooded his bloodstream. Stefan held firm, keeping Damon pressed to the ground as he felt his brother's muscles contract in a painful spasm and then go completely limp. He counted down from ten in his head before releasing his grip on Damon. He nodded for Alaric to pull the sword free. It came away steeped in dark blood and viscera. Damon's lower torso was equally slick with his own blood.

"The vervain won't last long. I need to get Damon to the basement."

Stefan didn't look at either Elena or Alaric as he grabbed Damon and threw him over his shoulder. Instantly he felt the tepid liquid warmth of his brother's blood seeping into the cloth of his shirt. He blurred into the house wanting to get rid of his burden as swiftly as possible. The blood, the fight, and the echo of Damon's jealous, hate filled accusations had him on edge. There was a big part of him that wanted nothing more than to throw Damon into the basement cell, slam closed the door and just leave. He didn't want to deal with this – whatever this was – he didn't want to have to face a brother who hated him again. Because that was the worst of it, not the fact that Damon had been a second away from ripping out his heart, but the fact that he'd seemed to hate Stefan completely while he did it. It…hurt. In the months since they had both returned to Mystic Falls, in the aftermath of Katherine's duplicity and the revelations of the Sun and the Moon curse he and Damon had come to some sort of understanding, something more than just a ceasefire, and Stefan had begun to believe, perhaps foolishly, that he and Damon had moved on from their hatred and enmity.

Above all things Stefan was so damn tired of hating his brother.

When he reached the cell, the smell of cold brick and mildew thick on the air, he lowered Damon's dead weight carefully to the ground. Crouching down beside his brother Stefan pulled up the tattered ruin of his t-shirt to check the progress of his healing. The stab wounds had mostly sealed, blood had caked over his repaired skin and the knotted scar tissue was already fading. Stefan let out a quick breath; he was relieved to note that the vervain hadn't affected Damon's ability to heal. He put his hand to Damon's sweaty brow, noted the dull heat of fever radiating through his skin and the rasp in his breathing.

"What happened, Ric?" He spoke without turning around, having heard the other man come down the stairs to the basement.

"Honestly, I have no idea," Alaric sighed. "Damon called me late last night, told me he needed to see me at the Grill at noon today. When he didn't show I came by the boarding house. I found Damon and he was…confused."

"Confused?" Stefan glanced up at him, "Confused how?"

Alaric winced, "He didn't remember being a vampire; didn't seem to remember much of anything. In fact I'm pretty sure he thought he was a human man living in 1864."

Stefan stared at him, "You have got to be kidding me."

Alaric grimaced wryly. "That was pretty much my reaction." He rubbed at the crease between his eyebrows and shook his head. "He was…different. Polite – he called me sir – friendly, not aggressive. I mean he was vamped out, but not acting on it. I took him down to the basement to get a blood bag as I know blood's sort of a universal cure-all for you guys."

Stefan nodded vaguely, processing what Alaric told him even if he couldn't quite believe it. "Then what happened?"

"Short answer," Alaric threw up his hands, "He reacted badly to the blood and flipped out."

"Flipped out?" Stefan stood up, dusting off his jeans and picking a few small fragments of grit from his palms. At his feet Damon didn't even stir.

"He spat out the blood he drank, collapsed, said something about it burning him and then," Alaric frowned eyes fixed on Damon's unconscious form. "I guess you could say he performed a personality one-eighty."

Stefan frowned feeling just a little exasperated. He didn't know Alaric as well as Damon did, but he hadn't thought the man made a habit of being this vague; he wasn't like this in class at any rate. "A personality one-eighty?" He repeated hoping for some clarification.

Alaric shrugged. "You know, I _know_ Damon is dangerous and homicidal; he's been that way for as long as I've known him. I also know that he's been mellowing since before I came to town. All the same – _wow _– I literally had no idea just how flat out nuts he could get, which, considering he did kill me that one time, is actually kind of a surprise."

Stefan pursed his lips, "Damon takes psychosis to a whole new level. He's had years to practice." He raked a hand through his short hair. "Are you saying that's what happened? He attacked you?"

"Yeah," Alaric looked a little abashed. "He went from talking to me calmly, actually being civil and reasonable – not a dick at all – and then, bam, he was telling me about some guy called Joseph and how he was going to flay me alive for the heck of it." Alaric studied Damon with a critical eye, "It's funny but I have this feeling he was reliving different times in his life, or un-life. Kind of a rolling regression through the past. It was fascinating to watch right up to the point where he tried to kill me."

"Joseph...he mentioned Joseph, but that was...?" Stefan began only to trail off as Elena, over-burdened with pillows and blankets, appeared in the doorway behind Alaric.

"How is he?" Side-stepping Alaric Elena entered the cell without a second thought, craning her neck to peer around her load. "I brought some blankets but I couldn't remember where you keep the fold away bed." She explained before she dropped down beside Damon's prone form reaching out to sweep his sweat soaked bangs from his face.

"Elena," Stefan sighed and reached out to pull her away from his brother, "You shouldn't be in here. It's too dangerous…Damon could wake up any minute."

Elena shrugged him off, giving him a look that said clearly what she thought of his attempt to get her to leave. "I know you guys have been building a vervain tolerance, but he's still going to be out for a few hours." Elena lifted Damon's head and propped a pillow underneath him. She snapped out one of the woollen blankets she'd taken from his bed and tucked him in the way she might a small child. "He's sick Stefan. There's something wrong with him. You can't just leave him lying on the ground in this cell."

"I don't intend to," Stefan retorted a little put out. "I just don't want him waking up and biting you while he's delirious." He met Elena's eyes. "He wouldn't forgive either me or himself for letting that happen. You know that Elena."

"He didn't try and bite me," Alaric pointed out, looking as if the thought had only just occurred to him. "I didn't think about it before – I was kind of busy trying to stop him from gouging out my eyes – but he didn't even try and bite me, though it was pretty obvious his body needed the blood."

"See Stefan," Elena seized on Alaric's words, "It's fine." She fiddled with the edge of the blanket she had tucked around Damon. "Have you checked him for bite marks?" She asked quietly.

"Bite marks?" Alaric asked confused, but Stefan immediately understood. He sucked in a breath of alarm.

"Werewolf," he explained shortly before shaking his head. "I didn't see anything. And there aren't any more werewolves in Mystic Falls now, not with Tyler gone."

"We don't know that Stefan," Elena's eyes were worried. "You weren't around when Rose was…sick. The way Damon was outside, it was just like Rose when the dementia hit."

"Well damn," Alaric murmured, "Aren't werewolf bites fatal to vampires?"

"Yes," Stefan nodded dropping down into a crouch beside his brother again, "but I don't think that's what's wrong. Rose's condition deteriorated rapidly. The only time Damon could have been attacked by a werewolf is when he went out to get more blood yesterday. He's reckless but even Damon wouldn't keep something like a werewolf back in Mystic Falls quiet – _especially_ not after Rose. And he would have been showing signs of the infection last night if he'd been bitten."

"So what is it then?" Alaric asked. "You guys are dead. I thought that pretty much exempted you from getting sick?"

Stefan nodded as he picked up his brother's arm and checked his pulse (and yes, vampires do have a pulse though it's slower than a human's). "That's mostly true, but Lexi told me something once, about a friend of hers who became sick after drinking HIV infected blood from a blood bank back in the '80's. Blood borne diseases can affect a vampire, just not in the same way they do humans."

"You think Damon's sick with _food poisoning_?" Alaric's incredulity was thick enough to walk on. He narrowed his eyes at Stefan. "There are better screening processes in place these days. Blood banks screen samples for HIV, hepatitis, and other blood conditions. It's seems a bit far-fetched that Damon's like this because he drank from a bad batch."

Stefan gave him a dark look in return. "Mistakes in screening can happen," he pointed out a little stung. "Look, it's a workable hypothesis and would explain why Damon spat out the blood you gave him. Vampires don't do that. When we get hurt badly our body's natural response is to go into blood lust. There is no way Damon would spit out blood unless there was something wrong with it."

"I suppose it's our best explanation for now." The teacher acknowledged grudgingly. "At least until Damon's lucid." To say Alaric looked less than impressed with Stefan's diagnostic skills was something of an understatement. Stefan couldn't help but feel a little aggrieved by that; he just didn't understand why Alaric voluntarily hung around with Damon – who had actually _killed_ him once – yet it was Stefan he treated with scepticism. He'd begun to suspect that Alaric had some form of nascent death wish or hitherto undetected penchant for masochism; there was no other explanation for the friendship he shared with Damon. No _sane_ person would want to be friends with their own murderer.

"How long until he's better?"

Elena's question broke into Stefan's thoughts. He turned to her and was a little disconcerted to realise she had not moved from her place at his brother's side and appeared to be finger combing his hair. If Damon hadn't been completely insensate right now he'd be having a field day about that.

"I'm not sure." Stefan admitted slowly, responding to the question and choosing not to dwell upon the obvious affection Elena was showing for his brother. "Lexi told me her friend recovered after a few days through drinking uncontaminated blood."

"Right," Elena nodded her face falling into the calm lines of determination and planning Stefan loved, "So we just need to get him to drink some fresh blood and…"

A low, choked groan cut Elena off and Stefan had already pulled her well away from Damon before his brother even stirred. Brow scrunching in a pained scowl Damon flopped heavily onto his side, the fingers of one hand scratching reflexively over the concrete floor as his eyes quivered and struggled to open.

"Out," Stefan herded the two humans from the cell and drew the door closed, snapping the heavy-duty locks in place before Damon had managed to force his eyes open.

"Guess his vervain tolerance was higher than we thought," Alaric whispered dryly as the three of them peered through the hatch in the door as Damon coughed, spat, and began to lever himself up on his elbows. Slowly Damon's squinted eyes flicked around the confines of the cell.

"…Ugh…nooo …not here…not again," defeated Damon let himself flop back down on the floor. "Why does this keep happening to me?" He whined low in his throat seemingly oblivious to his audience.

"Damon?" Stefan queried voice sharp. His brother's head lifted and Stefan wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that his eyes were human blue and his other vampire tells had faded. Still the sweat rolling down his forehead, slicking his hair to his face and the way Damon had to struggle to focus his eyes suggested that it would be a mistake to assume much about his mental state.

"Brother," Damon greeted him flatly after a moment. He rolled his neck and sat up slowly. "So what did I do this time?" He continued tiredly before Stefan could speak. "Kick a puppy? Make Barbie cry? What horrible, monstrous sin made you dump me in here?" Damon glanced down at himself and noticed the blood covering his t-shirt. He poked at the holes in the fabric. "Wait, did you stab me?" His eyes snapped up to his brother. "Fuck Stefan, why would you do that? I _liked_ this shirt." He pulled at the ruined piece of clothing. "This is coming out of your allowance young man." He shook his head still muttering. "Unbelievable, Stefan, just unbelievable – it's not like my day wasn't shitty enough, now you try and _disembowel _me?"

Stefan, Elena, and Alaric exchanged a quick look of mutual bemusement at this complete personality u-turn. Alaric shrugged resignedly his expression clearly stating that he'd already been through this rigmarole twice already and it was someone else's turn to take the flak.

"Damon," Stefan snapped, really wishing he wasn't the responsible brother and that he could just say screw it and leave Damon to his ranting. "Damon – I need you to tell me what year it is."

"What?" Damon stared at him as if _he_ was the one who had just been subdued after indulging in an insane rampage. "Do I look like I'm in the mood to play twenty questions? You've locked me in this shit-hole of a cell – _again_ –ruined another one of my shirts, and now you want to play _guess the year_? Do you _want_ me to kill you? Because, FYI, I am _completely_ open to that right now."

Stefan swallowed back about a half dozen retorts, seized the last of his patience by the throat and tried again. "Damon - you already tried to kill me today. That's why you're in there. Now I need you to tell me what year this is, and how much you remember from before you woke up just now."

Damon stared at him completely disbelieving. "Seriously Stefan? I'm done with the fratricide fetish." He jabbed a pointed finger straight at Stefan. "And I don't _try _and kill people; I just _kill _them. I'm very good at it. It's my one true talent in life. People I want dead end up dead. It's a fricking self-fulfilling prophecy. So, _ipso facto_, if I wanted you dead, baby brother, you would be dead."

Thoroughly annoyed Damon tried to push up from the floor only for his legs to give way underneath him. He dropped to his hands and knees with a pained grunt. "Cut it out Stefan," Damon gritted out between his teeth, breathing shallowly as he swayed on all fours. "The whole spinning room thing is a nice trick – very trippy – but you can _quit it_ now."

"Damon?" Gently pushing at Stefan's shoulder until he moved away, Elena looked through the hatch in the door. "Listen to me. You're sick, okay, and you need to lie down and rest."

Damon's head snapped up, sweat dripping from his chin. "Elena?" Blinking blearily a slightly appalled look crossed his face as he finally recognised Elena for herself.

She managed a slight smile for him. "Yeah, it's me."

Damon's wide eyes went from her to Stefan and his expression hardened, "Are you selling tickets to this? Is this your new thing: five bucks to see the caged vampire? God damn it Stefan; _let me out_!"

Damon surged to his feet only to crumple back down on his knees, his arms wrapping around his mid-rift as pain lanced through him. He slumped to the ground on his side, coughing thick, black clods of blood.

"Damon!"

Elena's hands were already fumbling with the locks when Stefan caught her by the shoulders, pulled her away, wrenched open the door, and dropped to his knees beside his brother as the first wave of violent convulsions racked his body.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Okay…so this chapter is a bit of a departure from the others. It kind of surprised me actually as I had a plan of what was gonna happen…and then Katherine showed up and everything got kinda weird..._

* * *

_Dead man dreaming_

"Here they come, boys – let's give these Yankee sons of bitches a warm southern welcome!"

Somewhere above stretched a blue sky yet the air was filled with gunpowder vapour, smoke, and dust. Fountains of earth, grass, soil, and worse erupted into the air as cannon fire tore apart a once sweetly rolling meadow and the firefly bite of bullets zinged through the chaos; bright lights of punctuation that gave visual spectrum to the heady, feral scent of blood and fire.

"…Our father who art in heaven…"

Men and boys in homespun grey thundered along rutted trenches scrabbling for position along the channel of dirt that resembled nothing so much as an open grave; muskets and rifles were loaded, fired, reloaded, as wide eyed, wane faced soldiers peered over earthen walls at the wave of humanity stampeding towards them.

"…Mercy be thy name…"

Men in blue fell in rows, bullets tore through flesh and cannonade fire obliterated all, over and over and over again yet the waves of men, running wild eyed and screaming towards their death, did not stop.

"Hold your position lads…"

The sound of gunfire was a staccato heartbeat and the cannons roared like the fabled dogs of war. The cacophony was too loud to hear and the silence too raw to ignore. The men in the trenches screamed for more bullets or just screamed because no one was human here. This was war and they merely animals cornered and monstrous. To the south the enemy breached the line, swarming the grey trench like a biblical plague. Skinning knives and cavalry swords flashed like molten gold in the hellfire light of battle; everything was red and screaming. Blue and grey and fear all around; all flesh nothing but grass, and the good soil bore a harvest of carnage.

Damon Salvatore walked through a memory caught in a dream. He could taste the cordite reek of gunpowder on his tongue, his ears ringing with the sounds of battle as he picked his way across a field littered with uncountable bodies. His worn boots slipped and squelched in puddles of blood.

"Why am I dreaming this?" He asked no one in particular, looking around at chaos caught in the frieze of memory. The tiger striped gold and orange of gunfire, the soot black plumes of smoke caught in the still air, the rictus masks of fear and madness on the faces of Confederate and Union soldiers alike – all of it was hideously beautiful.

"It's a metaphor."

Spinning on his heels Damon watched, pain in his chest growing worse, as the most beautiful woman he has ever seen (or will ever see) prowled towards him hips swaying in sultry amusement, long legs tapering down from the loving embrace of a quintessential little black dress. She wore her hair in a stylish modern take on the back combed bouffant and her calculating eyes glittered with laughter no doubt at his expense. She wore her masquerade mask and walked bare foot over the corpses of men.

"Katherine," he breathed the name dully and felt something old and tired and so very lonely die a little inside him. She smiled, lips curving in a way that Elena's never would, savouring his pain. He stood unable to move, no more in control of his own dreams than he was his reality as she sidled up to him. Climbing her fingers across the patched and threadbare cloth of his uniform her nails tapped against brass buttons impishly. The sound of his own heart beating, loud and heavy, droned in his brain.

"Why are you here?" He asked wanting to touch, wanting run, wanting to beg her to leave because it wasn't fair that she should still haunt every contour of his being. He inhaled her scent, roses growing on abandoned graves.

"Foolish," she purred in his ear nipping on it hard enough to make him bleed as she circled lazily, eyes appraising and unimpressed. "This is your dream, Damon, your mind. I'm always here. You don't let go. You can't."

"I want to," he admitted honest with her because she knew all his lies already. Katherine smiled, lips moving but eyes empty. "I want…" his throat locked. There were too many things he wanted to ever hope to verbalise them all.

"That's your problem." Katherine told him bluntly. "The things you want you can't have; me, Elena, your brother's place in life." She pressed against him fingers plucking loose brass buttons and flinging them aside. "Do you remember all those fanciful dreams you had back in the day?" She ripped open his shirt, tasted his cold flesh. "You used to bore me with your babbling; I had to fuck you just to shut you up." She hooked a cold hand around the back of his neck and breathed her words against his lips. "There were times I almost pitied you - all those dreams – they were too big for you."

The acid burn of humiliation made the incessant beat of his heart louder and more painful. He swallowed around the taste of shame. He'd given Katherine so much more than just his love and blind devotion (which had never mattered anyway). He'd handed off to her part and parcel the most treasured secrets of his soul and no matter what he could never get them back.

"Why bother then…if it was always Stefan…if I meant nothing then why Katherine, _why_?"

Katherine shrugged; so much indifference in one off-hand gesture. "You were pretty and easy and fun to play with." She said simply and without malice, merely stating facts as she found them. "You were desperate to love me and I thought I could use you. Plus, Stefan would never willingly part from the brother he adored."

_Thump, thump, thump_; each contraction of his heart sends lightning forking through his brain. It was becoming increasingly hard to breathe. He looked down as Katherine's nails raked dry-fire runnels down his chest.

"What do you want Katherine?" He's a hundred and sixty-eight years old. He knows his weaknesses and there are none more crippling than Katherine Pierce. He hates her but that's meaningless, she's in his bloodstream, her poison swims in his veins and powers the thunder of his heart. He reaches out to touch the cruel lines of her face and knows that he must be dreaming because Katherine would never be this patient with him in the real world.

"Survival," she answers pushing her nails a half inch through his chest. "What else could I possibly want?" Katherine continued to drive her fingers into his chest, deeper and deeper. "She's eating you, making you hollow from the inside out." Blood ran like water down his stomach but he did nothing to stop her as she clawed her way inside his ribs."I'm part of you, Damon. You stitched me into the fabric of your mind, your soul. And now that bitch is trying to unravel you." Her hand closed around his heart, probing and squeezing. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming. Katherine wrenched her hand back…

"I will _not_ be erased."

…and ripped out his heart.

* * *

He woke up clutching at his chest, pain sucking like a vacuum where once he'd had a heart. _She's eating you...making you hollow..._

There was fire in his veins, a thirsting burn that shrivelled muscle and etched bone. He could feel it in his aching jaws, the parched heat curling at the back of his throat. Louder than hell he could hear the beat of his heart, driving him further and further into madness.

He had to escape; he had to run before he unravelled completely all over the cold concrete floor. He was blind, deaf, and dumb to everything except the torturous pulsing in his mind.

"…Damon..!" Someone shouted his name and then there were hands grabbing onto him as pain ignited everywhere he was touched. Over-sensitised nerves exploded, filling his brain with too many signals all at once. He fought, thrashing wild and desperate. He bit into foreign flesh until his teeth hit bone trying to make the hands that clutched at him let go. He needed to run; he needed to get out of here. He had to find her. He had to rip out her black heart and make it stop…make it all stop before it was too late.

"…The muzzle…Get the muzzle." The same voice snapped, strain evident as he fought to contain Damon. Too far gone for talk Damon twisted like a snake bending back on itself and lunged, letting instinct and reflex guide his jaws towards vulnerable points. The electric copper insanity of blood erupted upon his tongue and he immediately gagged, choking violently.

"...Fuck...Damon...Get off me!"

His assailant grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into a hard, unrelenting surface (a wall?) Sulphur yellow fireworks danced behind his clenched shut eyes as his skull bounced off concrete, but it didn't matter. Pain didn't matter; the only thing that mattered was escape. He swung a wild punch, somehow connecting with the side of his attacker's head. The burn of blood still stinging his lips he lunged once more, clawing and biting and striking blindly. Again he was thrown back, hitting the wall and puddling towards the floor.

"Damon stop...you're just hurting yourself."

His assailant had all the advantage. _He_ wasn't blind, wasn't driven wild by the pulse pounding in his head, and swiftly Damon found himself pushed down, arms twisted at painful angles, face pressed to the cold floor. The last of his strength failed him then. Sightless and panting he stopped fighting against the arms that held him and inhaled the scent of soap and summer orchards, a smell that reminded him of home, of a little brother he had loved and wanted to protect always, in a time long gone.

"Give me the muzzle."

"Are you sure that's necessary?"

"Ric just give me the damn muzzle."

Damon didn't fight as something made of rough leather and iron was placed over his nose and mouth and fastened behind his head. He was already gliding away to someplace else; somewhere where nothing seemed to matter. After a moment a thick blanket was thrown over him and two full pillows were shoved under his pounding head. He felt the heavy weight of a hand pressing down against his shuddering throat. He thought about shaking it off but decided against it. He was so damn tired.

"Stefan – you're bleeding. Did Damon hurt you? Here let me see."

Katherine? Damon tried to lift his head, force open his eyes at the sound of that sweet, slightly husky voice but the person kneeling before him (his attacker?) used his grip on his neck to keep him immobile.

"It's okay Elena, Damon bit me but it's healed. You and Ric need to go home now." Stefan that voice sounded like Stefan. Was Stefan here? Damon renewed his efforts to open his eyes but failed all the same. He tried to speak but realised he couldn't remember how. He was so tired. The hand around his neck moved to rub down his side, reminiscent of the way he himself might stroke the flank of his old horse, Milo, to calm him down when the horse was fretful.

"But…" Once again that voice, Katherine without her inherent arrogance.

Damon wanted to know who could sound so alike and yet unlike Katherine. He lifted his head but was pushed down again. Distantly irritated he growled low in his throat, an old dog baring his teeth in futile protest. He felt the shift in air currents as the man kneeling over him leant down close to his head and murmured low in his ear. "No brother; rest. Just be still."

"I want to help Stefan."

"Elena, please. I need you to leave. I can't take care of Damon and protect you at the same time."

Take care of Damon? What did that mean? Damon tried to rise, tried to force his muscles out of lethargy and into action. Yet again he was pushed back down into his pillows before he managed much more than a twitch.

"I don't need..."

"Stefan's right Elena; right now there isn't anything we can do except get in the way." Another voice, a man's voice, spoke up. The man sounded subdued and Damon thought he should recognise him. "Stefan knows he can call us if he needs anything."

"…Fine. Call me tomorrow Stefan; no matter what. I mean it. You don't have to do this alone."

"I know and I will." Damon heard his brother promise and wondered vaguely what exactly he was going to do and how it involved Damon himself. He thought he should probably be far more concerned than he was. Stefan wasn't exactly his biggest admirer after all and he was kind of at his brother's mercy right now...but he just didn't have the energy.

He listened to the retreating footsteps of the other two people. He waited until he couldn't hear their heartbeats any longer. Then he sighed, part relief and part exhaustion.

"Damon?" The hand moved to the back of his neck gripping lightly. "It's Stefan, can you hear me?"

Damon didn't answer as memory wrapped in dream swept up to take him far, far away.

* * *

The year was 1865 and a bulbous moon hung heavy over the town of Mystic Falls. Damon Salvatore stood outside a small shack on the edge of the woods and sniffed the air for the unmistakable hint of burning torches. He couldn't see anything yet, even with his new improved night vision, but that didn't mean anything. The balmy breeze brought with it the echo of the approaching mob. They were literally baying for blood.

"You could just run," he pointed out blandly watching the woman in pale grey homespun dress carry an infant in one arm and guide a little girl out of the hovel with the other hand.

"If I run they will chase." She told him simply before turning to the snivelling little girl, "Hush, Amelie. You must be strong now."

"So let them chase." Damon snapped tossing his head. The mob was close enough for him to hear the occasional shout and ragged cheer. "You are a free woman now Emily. You could go north with your family."

The witch smiled, enigmatic and somehow sardonic. "I will never be free. But this way at least my children will."

"Mama," the little girl clutched at Emily's arm, eyes huge and wet. "Mama I'm scared. Don't leave us."

Damon turned his head away as Emily tried to soothe the child. He walked down the crooked porch steps and out towards the woods squinting his eyes until he could see the faint glow of at least two dozen lit torches bobbing through the trees. He sneered; the founding fathers of Mystic Falls had always enjoyed their pageantry but apparently the torch bearing mob had replaced the more staid and traditional ball as town pastime de jour. Unconsciously he clenched his fists at his sides, memories of the town's inaugural murderous mob still raw and aching in his mind. He resisted the desire to turn his head towards the location of the ruined Fell's Church.

"Damon," Emily called to him. He blurred back to the porch, still not used to his vampiric speed and prone to use it without thinking about it. Wordlessly Emily handed him the dozing child tucked into the crook of her arm. Damon hesitated for a moment, assailed by the sticky-sweet stink of baby before he awkwardly took hold of the boy.

"You have power," he said not for the first time. "Why don't you fight?"

"I have power," Emily agreed serene even with a mob of forty some humans baying for blood not seventy feet from her door. "But my children do not." She stroked a hand over the head of her daughter. "I made my choices; this is the consequence. I'll abide my fate."

Damon made a low noise in the back of his throat. It wasn't as though he cared particularly what happened to Katherine's former handmaiden or her children. It was simply that he did not understand why someone with Emily's power and intelligence would meekly _allow_ a group of ignorant humans _to burn her alive_. He didn't understand it and it disgusted him. He had never been one to follow the herd and since becoming a vampire he had gained an even greater appreciation for the freedom power could grant him. He turned back to the woods, just able to make out fire limned silhouettes tramping through the brush. He itched to rush forward and tear into the mob, drinking the bastards dry and spitting them out by the dozen.

"We have a deal," the witch reminded him no doubt sensing the siren call of violence humming under his skin.

"I know that," he snapped patience non-existent. He'd always had a hot temper (one of many perceived character flaws his father, may he rot in hell, had loved to draw undue attention to) and now the ever-present craving for blood made that temper all the worse. Katherine had promised him that he would stop feeling so angry and restless all the time once he turned. So far this had proved not to be the case; perhaps because _she_ was not here with him?

"I promised to protect your line and I will. So long as you and your descendents keep your word I'll do the same." He all but growled reiterating the promise he had already made several months prior in those first painful hours after his turning.

Emily's eyes flickered towards the woods, now glowing with the torch flames, the first time she seemed even marginally affected by the presence of the mob come to kill her. "The spell worked. Once the comet passes over this town again you will be able to open the tomb."

"In a hundred and forty years." Damon shook his head trying to get the loose fall of his hair out of his eyes. The last several months had been…difficult…and he was not quite the fine specimen of a dandy gentleman he had been when alive.

"All those trapped in the tomb will still be there, whether next year or next century." Emily shrugged off his frustration turning to her daughter. "Go with Mister Salvatore Amelie and remember what I told you."

"No mama, no," the child wailed at the same time that the vanguard of the angry mob breached the tree line.

"There she is - there's the witch!"

"Damn it," Damon growled, he grabbed the child and flung her over his free shoulder with lightning speed. The girl screamed out for her mother but Damon was already moving, running in a blur of motion no human could follow towards the woods north of the shack. He kept a tight hold upon the crying girl and the silent baby boy and did not look back over his shoulder as the acrid stench of burning chased his heels, carried on the capricious breeze.

He ran for miles through the dark night leaving Mystic Falls far, far behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Question: What is scarier than Damon suffering from a multiple split personality? Answer: A Damon whose split personalities have combined forces in the name of complete mayhem, that's what. ;) P.S. to everyone who reviewed last chapter, much thanks, sorry I wasn't able to get back to you personally, but hey, a new chapter is better, right? _

* * *

_Brothers reunited and opposed_

Caroline Forbes hopped out of her car and bounded lightly up to the door of the Salvatore boarding house. The door opened, spilling warm golden light across the dusk darkened front stoop before Caroline could do more than lift her hand to knock.

"Okay, that was creepy." Caroline frowned at Stefan noting his heavily creased brow and rumpled appearance. "So, I came over right away just like you said. What's up?"

Stefan held open the door for her and stepped aside. "Damon's sick."

"Uh hello, I already knew that." Caroline stared at him while she unwound the patterned scarf from her neck and shrugged out of her jacket. "We are talking about Damon Salvatore, the guy who used me like a chew toy, remember? I think _everyone _knows your brother is one sick puppy." An idea came to her and she widened her eyes, "Ooh wait. Do you mean we're going to put him down? I will definitely support you all the way with that."

"Caroline." Stefan pinched the bridge of his nose, "Damon's sick - as in real physical pain, sick. I had to lock him in the basement. He's down there now."

"Oh," Caroline blinked. "Wait…we can get sick? How is that okay? I mean we're dead and we have all these really inconvenient blood cravings and – grrr, kill, kill urges – to deal with. You're telling me I have to worry about 'flu and pollen allergies too?" She bit her lip blurring over to the drinks cabinet in the parlour. "My allergies are bad Stefan; really bad. I go all puffy eyed and my nose is, just ugh, and…"

"Caroline," Stefan walked up to her and touched her shoulder. "We don't suffer from allergies." He took the decanter of brandy from her hand and poured them both a drink. Caroline relaxed marginally and smiled.

"Good. There has to be some advantage to being dead, right?"

"I guess," Stefan knocked back his drink in one swallow. "I think Damon drank infected blood and caught some sort of fever. I've already thrown out the blood Damon took from the blood bank yesterday, but he hasn't fed all day. He needs blood but I don't want to leave the house."

"We can get sick from infected blood?" Caroline finished her drink and huffed. "Is there some kind of undead manual or something? Like _'Vampires for dummies'_ because there are all these pitfalls I don't know about, which by the way, sucks."

"Believe me I wish there was some kind of instruction manual," Stefan refilled his drink surprising Caroline because he wasn't usually much of a drinker. "We can smell sickness on humans, but with banked blood it's harder. It's rare for blood to be contaminated these days but it does happen. It's just something to be aware of."

Caroline stored this information away for later obsessing. "So Damon's in the basement and you need me to…what?"

Stefan bent down to retrieve an empty plastic bottle from the drinks cabinet. He handed it to her. "Damon needs fresh blood, but he's volatile and I don't want to leave him alone. I need you to get some animal blood and bring it back in this."

Caroline took the bottle gingerly. "You want me to sacrifice Bambi for _Damon_?"

Stefan nodded, "It's not ideal but Damon's violent and delusional. I really don't want him at full strength until he's at least lucid. It's just too dangerous."

Caroline sighed but smiled anyway. "Sure okay, but if the ASPCA come after me I'm telling them you made me do it."

Stefan managed a tired laugh, "Thank you Caroline. It's…good to have someone to help with this."

Caroline softened immediately and walked over to give Stefan a quick hug. "We're friends. Friends help each other out. It's not like you haven't done way more for me." She drew back, her smile becoming a little more sinister. "And anyway Damon will owe me after this and that's leverage money can't buy."

Stefan smiled crooked but genuine, "I think I might actually pay to see you tell him that."

He watched Caroline blur out of the house, waiting until he could no longer sense her presence before he turned and headed for the basement stair. He'd kept his senses strained for any sound coming from the basement but so far all was quiet. Damon had been fitfully asleep for the last five hours. He'd drifted off after Elena and Alaric had left and hadn't roused since. Grabbing one of the dining chairs from the seldom used kitchen Stefan descended down to the basement. Leaving the chair in the narrow passageway outside the cell door Stefan rooted around in the utility room for some rope. He had a feeling the next hour was going to be anything but pleasant and he intended to take every precaution, especially as he had no choice but to involve Caroline.

Damon was in the exact same position he had been in when Stefan had left the basement to wait for Caroline. Stefan looked down on him from the doorway. His brother was lying on the floor on his stomach under the blankets Elena had brought for him, face buried in pillows already discoloured with sweat. Seeing Damon in the same muzzle their father and the Founders had used on Katherine all those years ago brought back uncomfortable memories for Stefan, but the fact was muzzling Damon had been a necessary precaution. If Damon managed to get loose there was no telling how many people he might hurt or worse. It was bad enough when Damon was homicidal on purpose, an out of control, completely irrational Damon was a truly terrifying prospect.

Stefan dragged the dining chair into the cell, dropped the rope down beside it, and moved towards his brother. Damon twitched in his sleep but didn't react as Stefan reached down to pull the blankets away. He reached out and shook him by the shoulder. The stench of old blood, sweat, and sickness twisted in his gut as it rose like miasma from Damon's body.

"Damon?" He shook him a little harder.

"…Mmm…" Damon stirred, eyelids fluttering and the fingers of his ring hand quivered. Stefan took this as a positive sign, reaching down to grasp Damon under the arms and pull him up. Damon's eyes finally opened reacting to his change in position.

"…brother?" His voice was thick and slurred, further distorted by the muzzle.

"Yes it's me. Come on, get up." Coaxingly he helped Damon stand, taking most of his brother's weight onto himself as he half dragged him over to the dining chair and dropped him onto it. Almost immediately Damon listed sideways and nearly slipped right back down to the floor. Stefan bit back a groan of annoyance, crouching down to prop his brother back up and grab the rope. Damon didn't react, his chin bobbing against his chest barely conscious, as Stefan wound the rope around his torso and the chair back making sure to pin his arms to his sides as well. Finally he removed the muzzle and threw it aside.

"…what are you doin'…?" Damon roused a little blinking up at him. He looked down at the rope Stefan continued to secure him with and then back up at Stefan once more, "Stefan…brother, why are you doing this?"

Stefan tried to ignore the vulnerable look on Damon's face as he triple knotted the rope. "I can't let you hurt anyone." He said studiously avoiding Damon's eyes. There was something in his brother's voice and demeanour that was decidedly unsettling. Damon didn't try to fight free of the ropes and instead the weight of his eyes settled like twin lasers upon Stefan's back as he turned away altogether.

"Hurt someone?" Damon coughed weakly, a dry rasping sound and Stefan turned back to him watching as Damon licked parched lips and shifted against the ropes holding him. He still wasn't fighting, and was still looking at Stefan with wide, yet disturbingly passive, eyes. "I don't understand."

"You're sick Damon. You have a fever. You attacked me." Stefan faltered when he saw Damon's eyes widen even further, mouth parting in surprise and…guilt? "I can't let you go until I know you can be trusted."

"What?" Damon tried to crane his head forward eyes skimming over Stefan intently. "Where did I hurt you? Is…are you badly hurt brother?"

Stefan stared at him blankly, "You bit me. I healed."

"I _bit_ you?" Incredulity writ large across his face Damon cocked his head to the side, sweat and dark hair falling in his eyes. "Why in the world would I…oh." Damon stopped and looked around him at the confines of the cell. "I…remember this place. This is the basement. My…friend…Ric brought me here. I remember we were speaking and then…" Damon trailed off. "I don't remember. I think I saw Katherine, but her face was far too kind. Then I was running and Miss Emily burned while her children wept."

Stefan's face twisted as something hot and acidic bubbled up under his breastbone. "Damon, do you know what year this is?"

Damon shook his head minutely. "No brother I do not." He looked at Stefan expectantly. "There is this pounding in my skull. I try to reason around it but the pain is…the more I try to think the harder it is to remember." He smiled tired and pale, face bloody and skin greyish yet the smile was broad and bright and so completely devoid of cynicism that Stefan thought he was seeing a ghost. "I'm glad you're here brother."

"Oh," Stefan could think of not one thing to say. Alaric had warned him, but Stefan had not really had time to think about what the man had said. He hadn't thought about the ramifications of Damon's memory regressions. He hadn't had the time to consider them. Now he stood above his brother, tied to a chair, and found himself facing a person he had thought long gone for almost a hundred and fifty years – a man he had _mourned_ for one hundred and fifty years.

"Stefan," Damon spoke up and the tone of his voice – oh god – Stefan wanted to run. He wanted to run and plug his ears because Damon never spoke like this, not any more. "Stefan, I need to know – are you dead too?"

Blue eyes, eyes that he had known all his life and all his eternity locked with his and refused to let him go. Damon had always had such intensity to him. "Answer me, Stefan. Are you a vampire?"

Stefan swallowed and for the first time in a hundred and forty-six years he felt like a boy again. A naïve boy whose knowledge of the world came from books, his father's lectures and the tit-bits of gossip and playful mischief his brother regaled him with. "Yes," he whispered hoarsely. "I'm a vampire." Trapped by Damon's eyes he had never felt more ashamed of that fact than he was right now.

"No," Damon groaned throwing his head back against the back of his chair. He rolled his head from side to side as if a simple head shake wasn't enough to express his disbelief. "No, no, no. She promised. She promised me she would not do this to you."

"Damon what are you talking about? Who promised you what?" According to Alaric Damon was capable of flipping between moods with little to no warning. It was impossible to tell which "she" he was referring to, although the sinking sensation in Stefan's gut told him he already knew.

"Katherine," Damon confirmed his worse suspicions and then with his next words, ripped Stefan open to the very depths of his soul. "She promised me she would not turn you. I couldn't stop her from playing with you, she was Katherine and she did as she pleased. I loved that about her truthfully. Yet she swore to me that she would let you go. Your life was good; you had a future. Katherine promised she would not take that from you."

Stefan sucked in a sharp breath, hands clenching loosely at his sides. "You…you asked Katherine not to turn me?" He ran a hand over his face, "Damon you…"

Agitated Stefan turned away, stalking the corners of the cell. In the aftermath of his and Damon's disastrous turning Stefan had agonised over every sordid detail of his and Katherine's affair. His memories were still blurred even now; the remnants of the compulsion making everything seem surreal and dreamlike. His memories of their relationship, such as it was, were more like the memorised passages of a book, or scenes from a film. He remembered the details but felt detached from them. He still did not know how much of what he had felt was due to Katherine's manipulation and how much was because he had truly thought himself in love. Being with Elena had helped him understand the difference between love and infatuation, reality and lust-fuelled fantasy, but the doubt still remained, and likely would for the rest of his unnatural life.

His feelings for Damon were even more twisted and complex. He had wanted to spend eternity with his brother at his side. He had been torn with guilt when Damon abandoned him; horrified when he came back to make good on his promise of eternal misery. He had spent the last century and a half alternately afraid of (and for) his brother, sickened by him, incensed by him, frustrated and appalled. Worst of all he had also felt betrayed. Betrayed not because of the violence and the malice and the endless hatred; he accepted all that as he due. No, instead, deep down inside Stefan had always carried a little brother's sense of betrayal towards the older brother who had failed to protect him from the monster _literally in his bed_.

"Okay, I'm back and I brought some Bambi bottled."

Stefan whipped around, falling into a predatory crouch as Caroline appeared in the doorway to the cell, all yellow hair, sweet smile, and painful, broken innocence. She held out the bottle filled with still warm blood proudly before her but took a quick step back when she saw the look on Stefan's face.

"Hey – are you okay?" She stepped into the room, eyes zipping from Damon to Stefan and then fixing with a glare on the former. "Look, sick or not, whatever jackass thing you said to him, take it back now, or Bambi goes down the drain buddy."

Damon blinked owlishly at her, "Excuse me?"

"Caroline," Stefan sighed regaining his composure and shoving everything else to the back of his mind where it would eat at him quietly. "It's nothing. I just didn't hear you coming."

"I surprised you?" Caroline perked up. "Cool. I've been working on my awesome vamp-chick stalking moves. In fact, you are looking at the only girl in town who can walk in six inch heels without making a sound." She paused and her face fell. "So long as I'm walking on really thick carpet... okay so I'm still working on the whole stiletto stalker thing."

Despite himself Stefan's lips quivered in an almost smile. "Thanks for the blood." He took the bottle from her.

"No problem Stefan," Caroline beamed at him before peering at Damon. She smirked at the ropes tying him to the chair and something a little wicked glinted in her eyes. "You look like shit by the way – kinda looking your age, actually." She told Damon in a voice that could never be called sympathetic. "On second thought tied to a chair trapped in a cold stinky basement is such a good look for you."

Damon stared at her. "Do I _know_ you?" He then turned to look at Stefan. "Brother who is this young lady and why does she seem to hate me?"

Stefan opened his mouth not at all sure how to tackle that question but Caroline beat him to it.

"No way," She blurred over to him, and crossed her arms over her leather jacket looking down her nose at him, "_Amnesia_? Cliché much!"

"I know you are speaking English but I have not the faintest idea what you're saying." Damon was staring at Caroline like she was some new and interesting form of life he had never encountered before and was by no means sure he wanted to again. Stefan cleared his throat and stepped between them hastily.

"Damon, just...drink this okay?" He started to uncap the bottle. Damon's nostrils flared as soon as the first hint of lukewarm copper tang hit the air.

"Is that blood?"

"Yes." Stefan covered the top of the bottle with his palm and shook it to make sure the blood hadn't congealed too much in the short time since it was bottled. Vampires could ingest congealed blood but it wasn't enjoyable. He extended the bottle towards Damon, who promptly turned his face away.

"I don't want it."

Caroline, who had gone to lean against the far wall near the door, shifted in surprise. Stefan didn't spare the time to turn to look at her but knew there was surprise and shock on her face. Admittedly Damon didn't hide the fact that he thought drinking animal blood was the lowest of the low, but all the same vampires, especially sick ones that had gone without blood for over a day, did not refuse blood of any kind.

"Damon you need to drink." He persisted straining for patience. "Look, I'll go to the hospital tomorrow and get more human blood but right now you need to drink this." He pushed the bottle under his brother's nose and once again Damon tossed his head, straining his neck to get as far away from the bottle as he could.

"No." He repeated voice low in warning. "I will not drink."

Frustrated and obscurely angry Stefan grabbed his brother by the sweat dampened hair and wrenched his head around. "Drink." The lip of the bottle scraped across Damon's teeth as he pushed it against his mouth. Damon twisted his head at the last instant, almost scalping himself in the process. The motion jostled Stefan's hand causing him to spill some of the blood. It dribbled down Damon's jaw and neck before soaking into the already filthy collar of his ruined t-shirt.

"Damon, damn it, I'm trying to help you."

Re-securing his grip on Damon's hair Stefan yanked his brother's head back, forcing his neck to full extension and once again pushed the old Cola bottle into his brother's mouth. Blood coursed down Damon's throat, spilled out of the corners of his mouth and down his face. He thrashed against the ropes, kicked with his legs and managed to shove the chair back, just narrowly avoiding sending himself over backwards to the floor. Damon then spat the blood back into Stefan's face, his own contorted in fury.

"Help me?" Damon hissed baring teeth rusted with blood. "Help me? You already condemned me to this godforsaken existence once, brother! I won't let you do it again."

Stefan stumbled back a step as if Damon had landed a physical blow. "Damon...I...That's not what I'm doing," He shook his head, trying to deny the accusation even as ugly memories rose up behind his eyes.

"Isn't it?" Damon's smirk was hideous rimmed in blood and spit. He started to chuckle. "History repeating, aren't you always going on about what a bad idea that is? Or is it acceptable when it's just my life ruined? So long as dear little brother Stefan has his way everything is right and fine," Damon cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed and cruel. "That's how the tragic ballad of the Salvatore brothers goes isn't it?"

"No Damon that's not how it goes," Stefan clenched and unclenched one fist, while the fingers of his other hand tightened dangerously on the bottle, close to crushing it and spilling what was left of the blood all over the floor. "Believe it or not I'm trying to make you better."

"Oh I doubt that," Damon bit out, caustic but odd. He flexed against the ropes holding him and the chair creaked in protest. Stefan rushed forward, ready to restrain Damon if he suddenly burst free. Damon barked out a harsh laugh, lips twisting savagely.

"Accept it brother, the only way one of us can be happy is if the other suffers." A beatific, maddened grin spread like a bloody sunrise over Damon's face as bloodshot blue eyes fixed Stefan with a look of more honest hatred than he had seen from Damon in decades. Not since he had coerced Damon to turn had he seen a look like this on his brother's face. "But not this time," Damon told him almost dreamily. "This time you're going to suffer right along with me."

"Damon..." Stefan began and then Damon's legs jack-knifed outwards, kicking Stefan in the kneecaps. He staggered, the bottle falling from his hand as he immediately grabbed for Damon. Damon rocked the chair forward on its front legs, found his feet and twisted so that he could whack Stefan with the chair he was still tied to.

"Stefan!" Caroline leapt forward tackling Damon and the pair flew into the far wall. The chair broke, the ropes holding Damon fell slack and in a flash he had a coil wrapped around Caroline's neck like a garrotte. "You would do well Miss," Damon snarled in her ear as he jerked hard on the make-shift choke-collar, "to mind your own business and stay out of matters that don't concern you."

Stefan hit Damon from the side and slammed him into the opposing wall. Once, twice, three times he pounded Damon's head against uncovered brickwork, until blood stained the mortar. Dazed but not down Damon rammed an elbow into Stefan's larynx. Stefan gagged but held on, spinning Damon round, one hand going for his throat perfectly prepared to snap his neck if it meant stopping Damon. Eyes narrowed to furious slits Damon jerked up one leg and kneed Stefan in the balls. Gasping Stefan had time to raise his arms to protect himself from the follow up head-butt but not enough time to tackle Damon before he blurred out of the cell, slammed closed the door, and threw home the deadbolt.

"One hundred and forty-six years, brother." Damon's rapturous laughter ground against Stefan's adrenalin amped nerves as his brother peered at him from the wrong side of the cell door. "And now I've finally figured out how to make you pay." His smile would scare the Cheshire Cat as Damon stepped away from the door. "Get ready Stefan, because this is only the beginning."

"Damon," Stefan blurred to the door, shoved his weight against it and heard the enforced wood and iron groan against the frame. "Damon!" But it was too late, because Damon was already gone. Turning to sag against the door Stefan slipped down to his knees and looked up at Caroline mutely. She was standing at the back of the cell clutching hold of a broken chair leg in one hand and rubbing the purpled rope burns still present on her neck with the other.

"Well shit," she said looking a bit dazed. "I guess he really hates animal blood, huh?"


	8. Chapter 8

_Limits of endurance_

Elena Gilbert paced her room, crossing the floor before the end of her bed and occasionally looking out of her window as she held the phone to her ear.

"...Just promise me you'll stay indoors, Elena." Stefan's voice was taut with tension. She could hear it clearly buzzing through the connection.

"Damon has an invitation into the house," Elena pointed out walking over to her vanity dresser and pulling open her underwear drawer. A carved wooden stake lay on top of her bras and panties and she picked it up before closing the drawer. "It's not going to matter if I stay here or come with you on the search. If he really wants to hurt me he'll find a way."

She heard the tight slither of Stefan's breath over the phone, "Then stay to protect Jeremy and Jenna. Elena, I know you want to help. I even agree with you that if anyone can get through to Damon right now it will be you, but Caroline and I can cover more ground in our search without you. I'm sorry but that's just how it is."

"Fine," Elena rolled her neck, flipping the stake in her hand like a baton. "Just call me okay? If I don't hear from you in two hours I am going to start my own search whether you like it or not."

She thought she heard a huff of sound that was part grim amusement and part exasperation from Stefan before he agreed. "Okay; two hours. If I haven't found Damon by then we'll come up with a new plan – together."

"Good," Elena moved over to her window, leaned on the window seat and peered out into the darkness of the night worriedly. "And Stefan, promise we you'll try not to hurt Damon too much. I just can't believe he's really going to do something awful...and if he is it's because he's sick and not thinking clearly. Just like Rose." Elena swallowed hard. "I don't ever want to see someone suffer like that again, especially when it's Damon."

Stefan was quiet for a moment and Elena thought for a second the connection had broken until he spoke in a quiet, low voice. "I know you care about my brother Elena. But if he's a threat...if he's killed innocent people – it might already be too late."

"I care about Damon the same as you do Stefan." Elena pointed out just a little tartly, annoyed that Stefan was pretending that the worry so clear in his voice wasn't ninety percent for Damon's sake. "And there is always a chance. We proved that with Klaus. I didn't fight so damn hard against the curse just to lose someone I care about now."

Once again buzzing quiet was her answer before finally, "I love you Elena."

She smiled and a little of the tension she felt lodged against her breastbone eased with the words, "Love you too Stefan. Be careful okay? You and Caroline."

"We will. Speak to you in two hours. Bye."

"Bye."

The line went dead and Elena sank down on her bed, dumping her phone onto the bedside table and flopping back so she could stare up at her shadowed ceiling; she placed the stake beside her on the coverlet ready to grab if she needed it. Her hand played anxiously with the vervain locket she always wore around her neck. Her thoughts swirled dangerously in her head. Logically she knew that Stefan and Caroline, as vampires, were the best suited to tracking down and catching Damon, but a huge part of Elena desperately wanted to just run out of the house and go after him herself. She didn't even know why, it was just that sometimes she felt almost _responsible_ for Damon, like she was the only person who looked at him and saw not just _who_ he was, or what he had done, but instead what he _could_ be. It made her protective of him in a way she knew worried Stefan.

It worried her sometimes too. Hell it scared her, especially when she thought about all the vicious, horrible things Damon had done to people she loved. It had taken her a long time to come to terms with the fact that she _could_ forgive, and be friends with, the person who had snapped her brother's neck, and there was still a part of her, albeit a small part, that thought she should hate Damon and hate him forever just for that. Yet she didn't. She _couldn't_. She remained wary and cautious of Damon, even as she cared about him a little more every day. She could never forget what he was capable of, but even that was a double edged sword. Because while she had seen how _bad_ he could get at his worst she also believed, completely and totally, that he was capable of so much good. She had always known that there was a tremendous amount of love in Damon; love that had been denied and rejected, twisted and maligned for most of his long, long life, but still, Damon _cared_ and that was why she did too.

"Just let him be safe," she whispered into the dark quiet of her bedroom and honestly didn't know if she meant Stefan or Damon more. That doubt alone was far more terrifying than anything else.

* * *

The third time his foot slipped out underneath him, tripping over nothing as he stumbled along the side of the road out of town, Damon was forced to recognise that if he had any hope of getting away from this damned town he was going to have to hitchhike, or at least hijack a car. He stopped, bending over double to spit up more noxious bile. He'd pushed himself to his limits just to get out of that fucking cell and if Stefan had been less of a whiny little bunny-chomping weakling (Damon still couldn't believe his brother had gone back on the vermin diet after the whole Klaus mess had passed – he'd really thought Stefan had grown out of his eating disorder) then he might not have managed to get loose at all. As it was he was running on fumes now and the hunger pains were kicking his ass.

He flopped down on the road side, ready to enact his all-time favourite trick...or fade into a starvation induced coma, whatever worked. The night air felt sticky against his dry skin and the rank stench of his own blood permeating his t-shirt only made his already shitty mood that much more terminally pissed off. This, he decided, was without doubt way up the list of "worst days ever". So far only dying and finding out Katherine had played him like a fucking violin topped it, and, he was fatalistic enough to recognise, the day wasn't even over yet. There was still time for things to get so, so much worse.

Gazing up at the crisp night sky with all its twinkly, twinkly stars Damon let his mind drift, skimming away to another time and place.

* * *

1900, the twentieth century is so new no one really notices its arrival. In a small town that could have been anywhere in the United States, a black man in his early forties sat out on his porch, smoking a pipe and watching the world go by with jaundiced eyes. The sun slipped slowly, grudgingly, below the horizon leaving the sky streaked in angry gold and pink slashes and the evening bugs hovered around his head, drawn by the promise of the man's blood.

They were not alone in this.

The vampire arrived without fanfare, walking up the dirt road with a less than pleased look on his face. He stopped at the bottom of the three sunken steps leading up to the man's porch. The vampire scowled, removing his fashionable hat to swipe sweat from his brow, disordering his pomaded hair as he did so. "You summoned me." He bit out, annoyed that the man made no attempt to be the first to speak.

The man, who most folks knew as 'good ol' Bosie' but who knew himself as Ambrose Bennett, son of Emily, smiled serenely. "Yep," he drawled, "That I did."

"I've killed people for less." The vampire pointed out mulishly bounding up the three steps to the porch in one leap and flopping down on the spare lawn chair opposite Ambrose with ill grace.

"More'n likely," Ambrose nodded tapping out the dregs from his pipe and refilling it. "But you'll not kill me, vampire."

"Oh don't be so sure," the vampire smiled charmingly withdrawing from the inside pocket of his well tailored suit coat an enamelled cigarillo case and popping one in his mouth. "I only promised to ensure the safety of Emily's line; if I kill you that still leaves your sister...not to mention, don't you have young whippersnappers of your own now?"

"Amelie's the reason I summoned you here, vampire." Ambrose did not lose the slight smile from his weather worn face but the warm glint in his eyes faded.

"Really?" The vampire arched a brow, fidgeting fingers running over and over around the rim of his hat resting in his lap. He shifted to pull the cigarette from his lips. "What's your sister up to these days, something a darn sight more interesting than you, I hope?" He paused and tipped his head back to blow a perfect smoke ring into the quiet air of the evening. "A bit...high-strung your sister, if I remember rightly. Still I suppose that's to be expected. Knowing your mother was burned to death by an intolerant mob is bound to upset a lady's sensibilities, or so I would imagine."

Ambrose said nothing for a moment, expression falling into a still blankness that was as close to a scowl as the tranquil man ever got. The vampire, well aware of the warlock's little ways, smiled triumphantly, pleased to know he had hit the mark.

"So tell me, what _has_ darling Amelie done now?" The vampire held out a hand, palm first and interrupted Ambrose before he could say anything. "I warn you, this had better be a sufficiently diverting tale or I will kill you." The vampire's eyebrows drew together in a harsh scowl. "I'm not your dog to call, promise or not."

"She's lost her mind," Ambrose said as soon as the vampire had stopped talking. "My sister, she's run mad. Let her grief over mama take a-hold of her."

The vampire cocked his head to the side frowning as he snuffed out the cigarette on the arm of the lawn chair. "So far your story is far from interesting. Is there a point to this?"

Ambrose ran a veined hand over his cropped close hair, already peppered with grey. "Amelie, she's gon try and bring mama back. She's got to be stopped."

The vampire blinked, incredulously. "Emily is dead. The Founders' Council of Mystic Falls burned her to ash and then disposed of the ashes over running water. They were, if nothing else, very thorough in the execution of your mother. Emily is never coming back."

Ambrose shook his head, "There are ways, vampire. Magics so dark no sane witch would touch 'em, but Amelie, she's beyond reason. I tolt her that there isn't any way to bring mama back; that mama would not want any chile of hers workin' magic like this...but Amelie, she just wouldn' listen."

The vampire was quiet for a moment while he absorbed this. When he spoke he was quite serious. "And what do you expect me to do about this?" He asked crisply. "Even if I was inclined to interfere with a daughter's loving but insane obsession, Amelie and I are hardly on good terms. She blames me as much as the Founders for her mother's death."

"Necromancy vampire," Ambrose pressed. "She's dabbling in the black arts, playing games with the dead. I can't stop her; she's always been stronger than me."

"Necromancy?" Eyebrows quivering the vampire shifted in his chair, "That sounds...ominous." Distractedly the vampire pulled a gold plated fob watch out from where it hung from his brightly coloured vest and consulted the time. After a moment he snapped the cover on the time piece closed and returned it to its place before fixing Ambrose with cold, keen eyes. "Very well, I'm intrigued. You have reeled me in with your tales of magic and playing games with the dead. Now what do you want me to do?"

Ambrose took a deep breath, glanced down at his knotted hands, twisting in his lap. "There's only one thing to do vampire. Amelie's gone; the magic took her mind and her soul." He looked up meeting those intense eyes head on. "I summoned you vampire because I need you to kill my sister."

* * *

Bonnie Bennett woke up with her heart in her throat and a scream lodged under her tongue. Cold sweat beading her brow she looked around her in panicked confusion for a moment, sitting up from where she had slumped over her desk, face pillowed in her algebra text. She fumbled for the vibrating phone that had woken her from the twisted dream she only partly remembered.

"...Hello?" She croaked dry throated after struggling to figure out how to connect the call.

"Bonnie? It's Elena...there's a problem."

A shiver ran down Bonnie's spine and she sat up a little straighter in her chair, ignoring the twinge from her back, still sore from where she had fallen asleep slumped over her desk.

"Damon," she whispered. The tendrils of her strange dream, of a man she had never met and a vampire she really wished she hadn't rising up in her mind. "It's Damon, isn't it?"

"Yes," Elena's voice faltered and then sharpened, "Bonnie, how did you know that? Did Stefan call you..?"

"I had a dream." Bonnie admitted quietly, her eyes sweeping around her room, checking for uninvited guests or unknown threats in the darkest corners. "I had a dream about Damon."

"You dreamed about Damon? What happened? What was the dream about? Bonnie do you know what's wrong with him?" Elena almost tripped over her words she fired off questions so quickly.

Bonnie shook her head before she realised Elena wouldn't be able to see her do it, "Elena. It was a dream. Just a weird dream." The words sounded wrong, false, even to her own ears, but she didn't take them back. "Tell me what's wrong." Her lips pursed with familiar distaste. "What's Damon done now?"

* * *

Finally after what seemed like far too much of his eternity wasted lying in the road Damon heard (felt) the vibrations of an approaching pickup truck. He smiled. This trick was like going to the store for a tub of ice-cream was for humans; it was all about comfort in habit and comfort eating. Of course comfort wasn't exactly his motivation right now, but that didn't mean anything. Headlights swept over him like celestial flares as the pickup truck rolled to a gentle halt. Damon counted down slowly in his head as he heard the truck door open.

"Hey buddy you alright?" The silhouette of a man, thick set and wearing a jacket too heavy for the weather crunched over asphalt towards him. Damon didn't bother to drag out the game, mostly because he didn't have the energy. Lurching upward he forced his starved muscles into action, blurred forward, grabbed the guy by his thick neck and slammed him down on the hood of his truck.

"Don't call me buddy," he told the man leaning in to absorb the thunder of his pulse, the ripe burst of fear scent that even in his present sorry state was sweetly intoxicating.

"Fuck...Jesus," the man babbled, probably not meaning the profanity literally, but the thought still amused Damon distantly. "Get off me." The guy swung a fist, tried to shove Damon back. The blow connected with his shoulder and Damon growled softly when he actually felt it – just a little. Damn it but he was getting too weak; he shouldn't be feeling this bad after only eighteen hours without blood. Grabbing the man's fist he laced his fingers with the man's and squeezed until he felt flesh give and bone bow. The raw, rich aroma of blood hit the back of his throat as he breathed in. Fangs descended and he licked his lips.

"What's your name?" Damon noted dully that the man looked to be in his late forties, beer paunch flopping over his belt, flannel shirt and salt and pepper stubble speckling his jowly face. Hardly the most appetising prospect but beggars can't be choosers.

"Frank." Staring up at Damon Frank swallowed weakly as he either saw or smelled the blood all over Damon's shirt and recognised his situation was headed for shit-creek in a sinking canoe. "Look, I got about seventy dollars on me, my Visa card and the trucks not got too many miles on her. You can take it all, okay?"

Damon rolled his eyes, "I'm not gonna rob you Frank." Slapping the guy lightly around the face he dragged him up. "I need a ride and you're going to give me one, right Frank?" He smiled and all the blood left Frank's head so fast his knees buckled and he slumped a little against the bumper of his truck.

"S..sure, whatever you want man." Frank stared fixedly at the fangs, black veins, and bloodiness of Damon's eyes.

"Super," Damon shoved Frank towards the driver's door, "Now get in."

He blurred around the passenger door and was in the cab before Frank could get any ideas about trying to drive away. "Head for the county line."

At the very least Frank was good at following orders. It took him a couple of tries turning the key in the ignition but Damon figured that was probably because he was shaking like a tween at a Justin Beiber concert and decided to be magnanimous and forgive him. He settled back against the bucket seat and propped his feet up on the dash as Frank roared down the road. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the rhythmic pounding in his skull that echoed the trip-hammer thunder of Frank's pulse rate.

"Slow down; if we get pulled over I'm gonna have to get all rampage-y, and you don't want that Frank."

"Shit," the truck swerved as Frank flinched. "Shit man, what the hell are you?"

"Vampire," Damon turned to look at him mildly. "What about you?"

"Fuck, fuck me, no way man. No fucking way. This is not happening. I don't even believe in that shit." Frank rambled, beginning to drive erratically as he twitched in fear. Damon rolled his eyes again irritated.

"Look, I'd just compel you not to be afraid, but I'm having an off day and my mind mojo is shot to hell, so if I were you I'd get my shit together and calm down. Your raging pulse rate is making me all blood lusty."

Frank didn't say anything to this but he kept staring at the blood staining just about every square inch of Damon's shirt in the rear view mirror and swearing uncontrollably under his breath. Damon figured that was probably the best he was going to get considering he didn't have the strength in him to compel Frank. To distract himself from the pain in his body and Frank's erratic (and enticing) heartbeat Damon rooted about in the guy's glove box.

"You married Frank?"

"W...what? No." The man croaked.

"Too bad," Damon sat back in the seat. "What about kids, got any of those? Or a dog, cats, a _budgerigar_? Any other significant or not so-significant people who might miss you?"

"Why the hell are you...?" Frank's head turned to him whiplash quick. "Oh no, Jesus, you're goin' to kill me aren't you?"

"Mmhmm," Damon hummed reaching out with one arm to lightly wrap his hand around Frank's sweaty neck. "I don't really want to but I can't compel you, so what choice have I got? It's not like I can let you go."

Frank made a noise suspiciously like a sob and the car weaved over into the opposing lane. "Watch the damn road," Damon grabbed the wheel and yanked them back into the right lane before grabbing Frank's hand and forcing his fingers back around the wheel. They were approaching the county line and the last thing he wanted was to crash before they got there. "I'll make it quick, okay?" He told the guy returning his hand to the man's neck and squeezing a little for emphasis. "You won't even feel it, and hey, it's not like anyone will miss you."

"Oh Jesus," Frank sobbed as he drove.

Damon sighed. "He's not gonna help you." In the near distance the sign demarking the county line flashed in the headlights; a glowing beacon denoting possible freedom.

This was it, crunch time. Damon sat up straighter in his seat, dropping his feet to the truck floor. He scanned the road for any overt signs of danger. "Keep driving." He warned Frank even as he leaned forward to peer a little more closely into the night. The truck passed the county line sign and for just an instant Damon thought he'd been wrong. He thought he was free.

Then the truck rammed straight into the impenetrable barrier surrounding the county line with the same force as might be expected from ploughing head-on into a brick wall at fifty-five miles an hour. Damon, not wearing a seat belt, was thrown unceremoniously straight through the windscreen. He rolled off the hood and would have sailed a few feet across the asphalt if he hadn't bounced off the same invisible barrier the truck had hit. Pain like sub-dermal needles slashing through his veins flared through his entire body before he was thrown backwards, passed the wrecked truck, onto the grassy siding beside the county road.

A couple of moments later Damon blinked open his eyes and levered himself up on his elbows painfully, feeling every stinging bite as his tired body struggled to expel glass shards from his sliced up face and neck. The truck was sandwiched flat, the front crushed like a sardine can. Frank was very, very dead in the front seat; pieces of his skull splattered all over the dashboard. Damon winced, he'd planned to kill the guy sure, but he really hadn't meant for the poor fucker to go out like that.

Getting gingerly to his feet Damon limped over to the place where the truck had smashed into what appeared to be thin air. He approached cautiously, straining his dwindling senses for any other presence in the dark. Unable to find any he stopped short in the middle of the road and raised one hand tentatively. He pushed his hand, palm up, through the air. Or at least tried to; as soon as his hand reached a certain point, right at the county line, he met resistance. It was exactly the same sort of resistance as a dwelling place threshold. He literally could not breach it.

"Nooooo," Damon groaned pulling his hand back. "Oh you've got to be kidding me." He was trapped; he couldn't get out. He couldn't get the hell away from Mystic Falls like he planned, which meant he was screwed, metaphorically, existentially, and in every other freaking way completely screwed. His one and only hope of stopping the fucking _catastrophe_ he knew was about to hit the town had been to get the hell out of dodge.

But _she_ had one-upped him and trapped him behind a barrier he had no hope of crossing. He couldn't_ fucking_ believe it!

"Where are you, you crazy bitch?" Whirling around Damon looked around wildly, searching the velvet darkness for a ghost with a _serious_ grudge. "Where are you Amelie Bennett?"


	9. Chapter 9

_In the eye of the beholder, ever safe from harm_

Liz Forbes was in her kitchen, waiting for the microwave to finish nuking her TV dinner when her phone lit up with an incoming call from an unrecognised number. She hesitated a moment and then answered the call.

"Sheriff Forbes; who is this?"

"...Liz," someone coughed painfully on the other end of a scratchy connection. Liz frowned. There weren't many people who called her Liz and she didn't recognise the man's voice.

"Who is this?" She repeated ignoring the ding of the microwave as she strained to catalogue any background sounds or identifiable information coming through the connection.

"...amon...Liz it's Damon, Damon Salvatore..."

"Damon?" Liz's back immediately became rigidly straight. "What's wrong? Where were you today?" Instincts ingrained from years serving on the force, not to mention on the Founders Council, sang to life. She didn't need to hear the raspy tremor in Damon's roughened voice to know something was wrong. She'd been convinced that something was wrong as soon as Damon missed that morning's Council meeting but had tried to convince herself there was a mundane reason for Damon's out of character behaviour.

"Do you remember what we talked about the other day; the ritual murder?" Damon asked her instead of answering any of her questions. Liz noted the evasion but gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"The Lasseter case in Maudeville." She answered promptly. "The one that looked like a voodoo rite."

The case, which was being handled by the Sheriff's office in Maudeville in the next county over had piqued her interest because it was both violent and bizarre. Some poor kid had had his heart ripped out and his body strung up between two trees in a wooded clearing. The Sheriff in Maudeville was a chauvinistic asshole and hadn't been willing to share any information with Liz, but one of the patrol officers had been more forthcoming; the description of weird insignia drawn in blood all over the trunks of surrounding trees had sounded to Liz like some sicko's attempt at a black rite. When she'd told Damon in passing about the case, his response had raised all her red flags. He'd asked her to use her contacts in other Sheriffs' departments to find out if there'd been any similar cases, or cases of bodies turning up mutilated, especially without hearts or other internal organs. They had been planning to discuss the Lasseter case at the Council meeting Damon had missed this morning. It was one of the reasons Liz had been so surprised when Damon had failed to show.

"Right," Damon coughed weakly. "Liz I need you to trust me. Can you do that?"

"Damon what's going on? You sound like hell."

Damon actually laughed, a rough barking sound. "Then I sound like I feel." She heard him breathe out. "Look I can't explain everything now, but we have a real situation on our hands."

Liz's hand clenched around the phone, "Tell me."

"Last night, I swung over to Maudeville to check out the crime scene. Like I told you before, the whole thing reminded me of something I saw years ago; black magic shit." There was a crackle of static over the connection and Liz pulled the phone from her ear. It sounded like Damon was moving; Liz thought she could make out the rustle-tramp of someone trudging through the woods.

"Was it?" She asked. "A witch, I mean." As a member of the Founders' Council Liz was well aware that witches were as real as vampires; still the last bone fide witch known to reside in Mystic Falls had been executed in 1865, and while the late Sheila Bennett used to talk a good game, the Founders' Council had dismissed the idea that the woman was a witch; she was just a harmless old kook. The rest of the Bennett family, including Caroline's friend Bonnie, had never been under any suspicion. The Council was not even sure the Bennetts of Mystic Falls today were even related to the witch from 1865.

"Yeah," Damon's voice interrupted her racing thoughts, "it was a witch; a mean one too."

"Did you see the witch?" Liz was instantly alert. It would not surprise her in the least if Damon had gone out alone to track the witch down. He'd done just that enough times with vampires.

"...No, but that didn't stop the wicked witch of the woods from whammying me with some kind of curse."

"Curse; what are you talking about?"

Damon sighed, sounding incredibly weary. "It's complicated. Let's just say that I got a really big surprise when I went down to the woods yesterday. Woke up this morning sick as a dog in the middle of nowhere and I've been trying to get back to town ever since; had to borrow some guy's phone to call you."

"Where are you? I can send a squad car to pick you up."

"Not a good idea. Look, Liz. I need you to do something for me. Okay?"

Liz hesitated. More and more often recently she had found herself wondering about Damon. He and his brother had only been in Mystic Falls for a little over six months and there was so much she didn't know about Damon. His practical experience with vampires far exceeded her own that was for sure, in fact Liz was fairly sure that Damon knew more about vampires than even John Gilbert. Damon couldn't be more than twenty-three years old and he'd lived most of his life away from Mystic Falls, yet he not only knew about vampires, but apparently, witches as well. Liz had been toying with the idea of using her contacts to dig into Damon Salvatore's history for weeks, the only thing that had stopped her was the fact that Damon was her friend and she was uncomfortable doing so behind his back. Now she wondered if maybe she should do it anyway. Damon clearly had a lot of secrets for such a young man.

"Liz?" Damon was speaking again, "Hey Liz, you still there?"

"Yes, yes I'm here." She sighed and steeled herself. "What do you need Damon?"

"You won't like it," he warned her, the sounds of his laboured breathing heavy over the rustling of the line. "The witch got me, Liz. I'm kinda – compromised – and I'm not gonna be much help with this. So, as Council leader, I'm drafting in a sub. Alaric Saltzman knows his stuff. I need you to go to him, tell him everything you know about the Maudeville case. Let him know there's a badass witch headed for Mystic Falls. He'll help keep the town safe."

"Alaric Saltzman – the school teacher?" Liz was appalled. It wasn't just that Saltzman was a relative stranger to the town, but he wasn't even a member of the founding families.

"History teacher by day, Van Helsing wannabe by night; look Liz I get that I'm breaking the whole 'keep it in the founding families' secret society vibe, but I'm serious. I'm gonna have to sit on the bench for this shit, and Alaric can be trusted. He knows about vampires and the things that go bump in the night. He came to town to kill them after his wife – well, never mind. Just trust me okay?"

"Damon..."

"Liz please," Damon interrupted her and the note of desperation in his voice, sharp and taut, gave her pause. Liz didn't think she'd ever heard Damon sound anything but coolly confident in all the time she'd known him.

Knowing she was going to regret this, but also knowing that Damon had earned the right to make these calls Liz sighed, "Alright, alright. I'll talk to Saltzman. I don't promise to trust him right off the bat, but I'll give him a chance to prove himself."

There was a moment's pause wherein the only sounds coming through the phone line were those of the woods and then Damon spoke, voice oddly quenched and deadly serious. "Thank you Liz. There is something really bad coming to Mystic Falls and I can't stop it. You've put my mind at ease and I thank you for that."

Damon hung up then and Liz was left staring at the phone in her hands. Damon's words to her then had carried the disturbing ring of _last words_. Standing in her brightly lit kitchen, her dinner rapidly cooling inside the microwave, Liz had the pins and needles sensation of encroaching danger. Damon Salvatore was afraid, he was afraid _for the town_, and that terrified Liz.

* * *

Elena was listlessly trying to wade through a scene from Hamlet when her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She grabbed it, noted curiously that the text message came from an unfamiliar number and frowned even more when she read the message.

_Please come outside; I need to speak with you. D_

Elena was at the window, yanking back the curtains, before her mind caught up to her body. She peered out into the dark, straining to see anything in the shadows of her backyard. Then a long shadow detached itself from the overarching shadow of the cherry blossom tree at the back of the yard. A man, smothered in darkness, raised one hand in a lifeless wave.

"Damon," her breath caught in her throat. She remained exactly where she was. A few seconds later her phone rang. She answered before the chime could ring a second time.

"Damon..."

"Help me...please Elena; I need you to help me."

Ice erupted in her veins and for a split second the room around her spun, canting off-kilter. Damon was asking for help? Damon, who sounded so lost his voice alone brought instant tears to her eyes. She swallowed hard. "I need to know that you won't hurt me." She told him. "I need to know that you're thinking clearly."

"God, Elena." Damon's breath rasped across her ear, painful like a metal file slicing her mind. "Elena...please...I wouldn't hurt you. I...please, I need...I need you to tell me who I am."

Elena opened and closed her mouth, but no sound came out. She could no longer see Damon in the shadows of the backyard but she could feel his eyes on her all the same.

"She's in my head...Elena..._the bitch is in my head_. She's eating me...and I can't make the pain stop. I can't...it's - she's taking me apart piece by piece and I'm scared, damn it...I'm scared that I won't be able to stop her and then, then people are gonna _die_, Elena."

Elena already had the window open before Damon had finished speaking. It had been awhile since she'd used the window to escape her room at night, but she'd done it enough times in the past that she had the route down from the roof pretty much memorised. She landed with a soft huff in the backyard and headed straight for the shadows hiding Damon without a moment's hesitation. The thought that this might all be a vicious ploy to lure her to him never even crossed her mind. To the very core of her being Elena knew that Damon would never do that to her.

She found him slumped on the ground, his back against the fence behind the cherry tree, legs bent but sprawled gracelessly before him, head bowed, breathing uneven and hands limply resting against his thighs. He looked like a puppet with his strings cut abandoned on the ground. She stood beside the tree unsure what to say or do.

"Have you ever been lost, Elena?" Damon asked her, his voice devoid of any of the acerbic wit or false cheer that she had come to associate with him. "I'm lost. I've been lost for a long time. I don't know where I belong. I...I'm not sure there's anyplace I belong."

He looked up at her and by some trick of circumstance the cold white brilliance from the neighbour's security lights fell across his face banding it in skeletal streaks of luminance and pitch dark shadow. Despite herself Elena moved forward, drawn towards Damon as if by sheer gravitational pull. She couldn't look away from the nakedness of his expression. She had never seen him so still, so quiet.

"There are...holes...in my mind. They're like wounds; they've been there so long I just stopped feeling them, and sometimes I think, I think pieces of me started to get lost in those holes until there wasn't a _me_ left."

Elena sunk to her knees almost in slow motion. She was close enough to him, knelt in the scraggly grass and dry dirt at the base of the cherry tree, that she could see the blood smeared on his face and neck. But she wasn't afraid. At least she wasn't afraid for herself. She reached out a hand and touched his forearm; the need to touch Damon, to reassure herself that this was real, was overwhelming. Damon didn't react to her tentative touch and instead stared down at his empty hands.

"Do you know why I hate Stefan; why I'll always hate him just a little?" He asked her and then answered his own question before she could even think to reply. "He doesn't have any holes. He doesn't get lost, ever. He's...even when he was a ripper, a blood crazed asshole, it didn't ruin him. He found himself and everything was hunky-dory. I don't understand how he does it."

"That's not true Damon," Elena finally found her voice, albeit choked and hoarse, squeezed out of a throat strangled by the sheer waves of desolation she could feel pouring from Damon as he sat, unmoving. "He gets lost, and scared, and confused just like you. He just...has a different way of dealing with it." She inched a little closer to him, curling her fingers a bit more securely around his wrist.

Damon finally looked at her then, and Elena gasped, unable to recognise the person right before her, because this was a Damon she did not know. He looked so young, the years and the bitter confidence falling away and leaving behind the battered core of who Damon was. "He has you." Damon-not-Damon told her. "You're his compass Elena. You are the centre of his universe. How can he ever get lost when you hold him so tightly, so safely close to you?"

Elena's stomach turned over, even as heat rushed to her cheeks. She wanted to deny the words and the profound, yet understated weight of sentiment he had just expressed as if it was the simplest fact in the world. "No Damon; no. I love Stefan, but I'm not responsible for who he is. Stefan is responsible for himself; just like you are responsible for you."

Damon smiled faintly, caustically, and pulled away from her hand, turning his head to stare away into a middle distance she couldn't breach. She watched his throat bob as he swallowed. "But that's the point. I'm responsible, but I'm not in control. I used to be...a long time ago. I use to believe in things. I use to believe in me...and then...then I just...stopped."

Elena stared at the stark lines of his profile, caught in cruel relief by the phosphor glow of the security lights. "I know," she whispered. "Stefan told me...and Katherine, she called you 'sweet and polite'."

Damon laughed, tilting his head back against the slats of the fence as he closed his eyes. "Katherine," he said the name like a curse, but the twist of his mouth was wistful. "God, I was such a fool; just a stupid, stupid fool."

Elena flinched shocked and almost angry that Damon would think that about himself. "That's not true. You loved someone who didn't deserve you. That doesn't make you stupid or a fool." Elena's mouth twisted into a moue of distaste. "Katherine's the fool."

"You think Katherine didn't deserve _me_?" Damon was staring at her, incredulity written all over his face, he almost smiled, almost laughed. "Oh Elena, that's sweet, but we both know it's not true." He shook his head looking away again. "I was desperate to patch the holes in me, desperate for a purpose. Katherine let me think she could be that purpose." He closed his eyes. "I suppose I should be grateful for that at least. I had a purpose, for one hundred and forty-five years I had something to cling to, even if it was a lie."

"Don't ever say that – how could you say that?" A bolt of fire ripped through Elena and without thinking she had moved, closing the gap between them so she was kneeling right in front of him. She had Damon's face grasped between her hands before she knew what she intended to do. "Katherine used you Damon. She took the best of you and she threw it away."

Under her palms Damon's cheeks were crusty with dried blood and grit, yet Elena didn't care. She stared into Damon's startled eyes as if she could burn him. For an instant she wished she was a vampire and could compel Damon to believe her once and for all. "Katherine had no right to treat you like that. She shouldn't have taken your love if she couldn't give it back."

He stared at her, utterly still under her hands and made no attempt to pull away or touch her in turn. He just looked at her. Heart hammering in her throat Elena forced herself to let go of his face so she could sit back on her haunches, snatching back a few inches of physical distance even as she felt her emotional walls crashing down around her.

"But I gave it away; I had to. All I had to give was me," He murmured so softly, eyes slinking away and brows creasing in puzzlement. "I always needed to be noticed, even as a boy. I needed to know I existed. I used to...I used to have this dream that I was blind. I couldn't see anything but blackness and I was so afraid I was going to disappear. I used to stare into Katherine's eyes just to see myself there. I used to believe I was real when I could see myself in her."

Damon wasn't looking at her and for that Elena was grateful. She didn't know what she would do if he looked at her right now. Taking a deep, cleansing breath she reached out to touch his cheek. "You're real Damon. You won't disappear."

He looked up then and finally reached out to grasp her fingers in his, pulling them away from his face. "But I did. Elena don't you see? I disappeared." His face twisted in almost comical distaste. "I became Katherine in guy drag."

"You're nothing like Katherine." Elena told him, meaning every word.

Damon studied her hand, gently stroking his own fingers over hers. He gazed at her hand as if it was something precious and infinitely breakable. Elena looked at his bowed head and decided she understood the feeling. She was looking at something precious, but broken.

"No," Damon agreed. "Katherine isn't anywhere near this pathetic. God, I don't even know how to fix everything that's wrong with me."

Elena shook her head, not denying that there was a lot that needed fixing, but denying that he was in anyway unfixable. "You're doing okay so far. Damon. You have come so far. You are doing better every day. Whatever is happening to you, you can't let it break you."

Damon shifted restlessly releasing her hand. "I am broken. All that's left are pieces that don't fit together. I wanted...I wanted to be better. For you, for Stefan; for _me_. But I'm weak and she's ripping new holes in my mind that I don't have the strength to fill."

"Who Damon? Who is doing this to you?"

Elena tasted salt in her mouth, tasting the tears she couldn't shed. She could still feel the phantom warmth of his touch on her hand. The need to make him look at her, to anchor him and stop him drifting away made her heart roar in her chest. She was afraid, afraid in a way she had never known before. She was losing him right before her eyes, watching this person who was her friend, fade away right in front of her and she didn't understand why.

"Look at me," she whispered.

He shook his head mutely, once again shifting his body a fraction of an inch farther away from her and Elena had the sudden feeling that he was preparing to bolt. Instinctively she reached out and clasped his arm, squeezing hard.

"Look at me." She repeated, this time as a command. He looked at her. He always did what she demanded of him. Elena seized hold of his gaze and there was no world outside of this moment, no existence outside of Elena and Damon.

"I see you Damon. I've always seen you." She told him willing him to understand the importance of her words. She felt it when Damon tried to look away; she felt it on some deep intuitive level beyond any of her regular five senses and she did not let him. "Can you see yourself? Can you see what I see when I look at you?"

"I..," Damon had started to shake, might have been shaking the whole time for all Elena knew, "I don't know."

"Then look Damon; look in my eyes and _see_." Elena pushed, raising up on her knees and holding him by the shoulders, hands moving up his neck to cup his cheeks. "You're not lost. _I see you_. There is more in you than you know. I won't let anyone take that away from you."

Damon's trembling was worse now, he reached up with fumbling fingers to cover her hands with his, still pressed against his face. It was then that Elena realised she was shaking a little too, her breath as harsh and scalding in her lungs as his own rough, shallow breathing. In this universe for two what he felt she felt just as keenly. Then Damon moved, leaning into her and Elena froze the universe within and without suddenly still as Damon closed the gap between them, her hands still held to his cheeks. Elena was captivated by the flutter of dark lashes as Damon closed his eyes and brushed his forehead to hers. Her lips parted; her mind frozen in a state of shock and her heart twisted savagely, too large for her chest.

"Thank you," He whispered in her ear before slowly, sweetly, dropping his forehead to her shoulder and encircling her with his arms. She felt the tension ease from his body as he turned his face into the hollow of her collarbone and breathed her in like a benediction.

Elena, caught between two universes, stared sightlessly towards the dull slats of the fence, biting down on her bottom lip hard enough to make it swell as she tried not to make a sound; hot, burning tears coursed down her cheeks. She held Damon in her arms as he drifted into sleep and knew it would be a very long time before she was ready to let him go.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Hello! Once again I'd like to thank everyone – new and old – who reviewed this story and particularly the last chapter. I'm sorry I haven't had chance to reply in person to each review but I've been too busy feeling sorry for myself with a dose of the stomach flu –ugh. I blame the delena in the last chapter, took way too much out of me writing all that angst! Anyway in this chapter I return you to our scheduled plot (and some gore) ;)_

* * *

_The dead call to the dead_

"Wow." Caroline stared at the wrecked truck sat on the side of the county road. "I hope the owner's insured."

"I think he's past caring, Caroline." Stefan stood by the crushed cab of the pickup. He was peering inside, where a body was slumped over the steering wheel. In one harsh movement he wrenched the caved in door right off. The body flopped out in that boneless, sick way only the very dead could manage. Caroline flinched despite herself as the corpse hit the ground. She tried not to focus on the pulpy red mess that used to be the guy's head. She tried not to think _yummy _when she caught the scent of fresh(ish) blood on the night air.

"Poor guy," she walked up beside Stefan, determined to prove that she could handle this as well as he could. She turned to look up and down the completely deserted county road. "Huh, what did he hit? I mean this is the only wreck on the road and he didn't hit a tree because that would leave marks...so...what happened? He has to have hit something, right?"

Stefan bent down to turn the body onto its back. Caroline turned away as the man's floppy, lifeless limbs rolled into a dead sprawl. She might be dead, but that didn't mean she was all that comfortable being around corpses, especially not ones that were all squishy and, just well, gross.

"His heart's missing." Stefan told her in that voice that meant _I am imparting serious and doom laden information please pay attention because you will be tested on this later_.

"No way; let me see." Caroline immediately forgot her icky feelings and hunkered down beside him. Stefan pulled back the blood saturated material of the guy's flannel shirt to show her the blood rimmed hole in dead-guy's diaphragm. Caroline swallowed shallowly not sure if she wanted to throw up or start chowing down. "That's not normal." She said. "I mean that didn't happen because of the wreck."

"No," Stefan agreed getting to his feet before walking away from dead-guy's body. "Someone ripped his heart out."

"Someone?" Without the safety net of Stefan beside her Caroline hurried to step away from dead-guy before she did something embarrassing like vomit or try to lick the blood from the body. "Like _Damon_; that kind of someone?"

"I'm not sure." Stefan was staring intently at the empty road beyond and he was wearing his _deep thoughts _frown now. "I thought I smelled Damon in the cab. I'm pretty sure he was in the truck when it crashed, because it's his blood on the broken windshield glass. But the body hasn't been bitten; it hasn't been drained. It doesn't make sense that Damon would kill someone that bloodily but not feed, not in the state he was in when he escaped the basement."

"Right so..." Caroline wandered up behind Stefan, "So what? Damon tried to hitch a ride out of town, the guy crashed and he decided to rip his heart out because he was mad about the wreck?"

Stefan didn't answer her, instead he raised one hand to...hi-five thin air? Caroline blinked. "Stefan?" He still didn't answer but began some sort of mime act where he pretended that the air was solid and he..._leaned into it_.

"What the hell?" Caroline blurred up beside him and as she did so something shocked her, a flash of stinging static that seemed to jump from the air just beside her to numb her shoulder and side as she tried to crowd Stefan. "Hey...ow! What?"

"It's...a barrier." Stefan was staring at his own hands, both pressed firmly against the suddenly solid and impassable air. "A threshold barrier...but that's impossible. This isn't a dwelling place, it's a county line."

Caroline reached out to touch the air and jerked her fingers back as the spark of...something...zinged through her. "Ouch...that's really freaky."

"Yeah," Stefan said slowly. "Freaky is one word for it."

* * *

Bonnie Bennett couldn't shake the spiders down her spine feeling that she was being watched as she rooted through the boxes of her Grams things she'd brought down from the attic after speaking with Elena. She told herself that she was probably just amped up after her weird dream and the news that Damon had gone loco. In fact merely hearing the name Damon Salvatore was enough to put her on edge. It wasn't that she was afraid of him (she'd gotten too good at giving him aneurisms to be afraid of him) but instead she just really disliked him. Hearing his name was like fingers on a chalk board to her. It was enough to make her cranky all day.

Of course the dream hadn't helped. The dream about a man she somehow knew was one of her ancestors; the dream that had involved Emily's son asking Damon Salvatore to kill his sister. Bonnie had seen and done too much since discovering her witch heritage to dismiss the dream as just a figment of her imagination brought on by eating too much cheese before bed. No, she'd had that dream for a reason. Now she just needed to find out what that reason was. Hopefully Grams genealogy books would be a good place to start.

She had names to work with after all, Ambrose and Amelie Bennett; maybe if she found them in the family tree, saw for herself that they had really lived, she might find some better to clue as to why she was dreaming about them and Damon.

"A-ha," finally after forty minutes of fruitless, increasingly angsty searching through the numerous family tomes her Grams had kept so beautifully preserved and left to Bonnie in her legacy, she found a reference to Ambrose Bennett. An obituary dated September 21st 1900. The obituary was short, just a few lines from an old and crumbled newspaper cutting and didn't say much, but what was interesting was the hand written scrawl on the back of the paper, the ink faded to a near invisible brownish violet: _He died to stop her. _

"'He died to stop her?'" Bonnie repeated the words out loud, feeling a chill race up her spine as the sensation of being watched intensified. "Stop who? And stop her from doing _what_?"

* * *

September 14th 1900**: **

The vampire knew that he would find death inside as soon as he approached the small house on the edge of the swamp. He could smell blood and decomposition wafting on the air from the open windows. He rocked back on his heels, half enticed and half revolted by the scent. Vampires were predators and blood was food, but they were not carrion feeders and he had been dead long enough to recognise the stench of old death when it walked up and, metaphorically speaking, slapped him around the face. Turning to his travelling companion he waved a hand silently telling the other to stop.

"We're too late."

Removing his hat the vampire used a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the perspiration beading his brow. He was a southerner to the bottom of his undead heart but Virginia was never this humid; the wet heat was stifling and he wasn't dressed for it. He _hated_ Mississippi.

"They dead?" Ambrose stepped up beside him nodding towards the house where they had been told Amelie had found lodging, ignoring the explicit command not to. The vampire sighed. These Bennetts' were just incapable of behaving. He really wished he could just leave them to their own messes – or better yet kill both sister and brother. He had a feeling his life would be so much easier without any Bennett witches causing him trouble. If it wasn't for Katherine...

"Yes," he dragged out the word nerves jangled by the sweaty heat and the stench of death, "Surely even you can smell it?"

Ambrose shook his head and foolishly moved forward as if to enter the house. The vampire growled under his breath and blurred forward, breaking open the door to the house and breaching the property (the threshold null and void with everyone dead) before Ambrose had made it to the porch. It may be a nuisance but he'd made a promise to protect Emily's line and he would fulfil it, even if that meant he had to protect one Bennett from another.

The first thing he saw when he entered the house was the blood liberally painting the walls. Despite the fact that the blood was old, half dried and spoiled, the vampire still had to close his eyes and release a cleansing breath to stop his vampire instincts from taking command. He'd been dead almost forty years, which was, ironically, longer than he'd _lived_, but still he wasn't in complete control. This annoyed him and tended to remind him of his brother, the one person he never wanted to think on. The idea that he and his brother might have anything at all in common angered him and anger did not help one curb one's bloodlust.

Opening his eyes, instincts held under his tight rein, the vampire forced himself to look beyond the blood to the carnage laid out so carefully before him.

"Oh..._lovely_," The body of a woman had been strung up across the lintel of the door leading to the back of the house. Someone had opened her up like a carcass in a butchers' window. Flies swarmed the body, laying their eggs in the gaping hole where once the woman's heart had lodged. It was an incredibly unedifying sight. Whoever the woman had been in life, he doubted she'd deserved to be treated like this in death.

The vampire sighed and shook his head, following his nose to the other bodies. He found two in the tiny sitting room; a man slumped over an open newspaper, and a grandmother, dead in her rocker. They too were missing their hearts. He left the room, sidestepped around the dangling corpse leading to the kitchen – setting her stockinged feet to gentle swaying in the air – and looked around for anything remotely interesting or out of place. He found a pot of stew, gone over the boil, sat on the stove and a rustic table set for five places. This meant that he was missing two bodies.

The vampire left the kitchen, once more sidling around the corpse in the doorway, but this time he stopped, looked up into the slack, grey features of the dead woman. Mocking himself for foolish sentiment but reacting all the same, the vampire reached out and pushed closed the dead woman's eyelids before carefully taking her body down and laying her out on the kitchen floor. He justified the action to himself as solidarity with one of his (less fortunate) fellow dead.

"Saints preserve us," Ambrose stood in the open front doorway, his eyes wide, flicking from the blood soaked walls to the dead woman he could just see through the open kitchen doorway. The warlock's heart rate picked up notable; the gorgeous scent of fear spiked adrenalin perfuming the air. The vampire scowled, grinding his teeth just a little.

"You just don't have the sense you were born with, do you?" He rose to his feet ignoring the resurgence of his bloody desire. "Well as you're here. I've found three bodies; this one and two more in that room there. They seem to have lost their hearts. Think it was darling Amelie?" He smiled brilliantly fully aware that his fangs were evident but too annoyed to care.

Ambrose eyed him warily, "I'd have to touch the bodies to test for magic," he sighed expression falling into deep sadness. "Is it just the three?"

The vampire shrugged, "The table was set for five. I have yet to check all the rooms."

He didn't bother to mention that he could smell more blood and death emanating from the pantry beyond the kitchen. While it might be fun to play with the man, trick him into walking into the two missing corpses just to watch his reaction, the truth was that he wanted to get out of this charnel pit of a house possibly even more than the warlock. He could always tease Bennett once they were back in more civilised environs, after all.

"Then you find 'em, while I deal with these," Ambrose said rolling his shoulders and squaring his jaw. The vampire arched a brow unimpressed.

"You're ordering me around now?" He stepped forward, "Has your sister's lunacy spread? Do I need to list all the reasons why annoying me is not healthy for you?"

The warlock had the audacity to smile, faint but confident. "We all got our strengths in this world, vampire. Mine's magic and yours...well, I heard that the dead call to the dead."

"You're a fool," negligently the vampire slammed Ambrose against the doorframe, notching his hand comfortably under his chin and leaning in to breathe in his ear. "A very lucky fool whose mother had the foresight to make a deal with me that included your safety. If she hadn't I might just kill you right now."

Ambrose snorted disdainfully, "Luck ain't got a thing to do with any o' this vampire." The warlock stared him down, "Not a one o' us in this house, including these poor sons-o-bitches got a jot o' luck to our names."

* * *

Alaric had just finished grading (pretty bad) papers on McCarthyism and Cold War hysteria when he heard the knock on his apartment door. His head jerked up and he frowned. Despite having lived in Mystic Falls for almost five months now he really didn't know too many people. This was partly because integrating into society hadn't been in his original game plan upon moving to the town, but also because his new circle of friends included a vampire with a big problem with social niceties and so, yeah, his social life was pretty dead in the water. Therefore it raised all his 'danger Will Robinson' sirens that someone would be knocking on his door at a quarter from eleven at night.

He grabbed the vervain syringe and slim stake from the hall table, shoving them into his pants back pocket before opening the door. He had a moment to wish, sincerely, that his apartment door had a peep-hole before all his attention was taken up by the gun being pointed very squarely at his head. Well shit. This never happened to him back in South Carolina.

"Mister Saltzman," Sheriff Forbes said on the other (far safer) end of the gun. "I apologize for this. But I need you to please put this in your mouth and chew." In her free hand the Sheriff presented him with a fresh sprig of vervain.

"What the hell?" Alaric stared from the vervain to the woman holding a gun to his head. "What is this?"

Sheriff Forbes hard expression faltered a little, "I'm sorry but I need to know I can trust you." Her finger shifted on the trigger. "I won't ask again. Please take the vervain."

Alaric took the vervain in his bare hand, watched the Sheriff watch him take it and very deliberately stuffed the sprig into his mouth, chewing methodically. He made himself swallow everything, including the rough twig and watched, curious despite a rising sense of outrage, as the Sheriff lowered the gun, her breath whooshing out of her in overt relief.

"Oh thank god," the woman holstered her weapon. "Damon said you could be trusted...but I had to be sure."

"Wait...Damon? What does this have to do with Damon?" Alaric demanded, trying not to cough around the piece of vervain stuck at the back of his throat in case the jumpy Sheriff mistook the reaction as a _vampiric _one. After all Sheriff Forbes wasn't supernatural (as far as he knew) if she killed him thinking he was a vampire Alaric was fairly certain he'd stay dead, which, although incredibly ironic all things considered, would suck.

The Sheriff shifted a little awkwardly now she was no longer holding him at gun point, and glanced briefly over her shoulder down the empty apartment complex corridor. "Can I come in? This isn't really the sort of thing I want overheard."

Alaric stared at her, "You pointed a gun at me. I'm fairly sure I could have your badge for that."

He wasn't actually, but on principle he didn't want to make a habit of being friendly with people who tried to kill him. Alaric knew this made him something of a hypocrite as he was perfectly fine with being friends with someone who had actually _succeeded_ in killing him, but yeah, whatever.

Forbes looked increasingly tense and worried, shifting nervously from foot to foot and glancing around her at the still empty corridor. "This is _Council_ business, Mister Saltzman." She told him grimly eyes steely but glinting with urgency. Alaric knew he didn't entirely manage to keep his poker face intact because the Sheriff read something in his reaction that convinced her to continue with a little more confidence. "There is a threat coming to this town and Damon Salvatore told me you could help keep Mystic Falls safe."

_What the fuck? _"Damon said what?" Alaric wondered if he was drunk and dreaming this, and then thought that he just wasn't that lucky.

"It's complicated," the Sheriff said and Alaric couldn't help but think _no shit, Sherlock_, but just managed not to verbalise that response. Sheriff Forbes was watching him intently. "And it really isn't something I'm comfortable discussing _in a corridor_."

"Right," Alaric rubbed a hand across his face, feeling like Alice falling down another damn rabbit hole. "Yeah, okay. Come in." He stepped aside and opened the door for the sheriff who slipped in behind him swiftly.

"Thank you, I promise I'll explain everything. First though I need to ask you," she looked at him intently, "What do you know about witches?"

* * *

"Stefan...shouldn't we report the wreck or something?" Caroline asked as she trailed Stefan through the woods running parallel to the roadside. They had been tracing the invisible county line, checking to make sure that the barrier extended into the woods and not just across the road. "I mean that guy might have family."

"We can't Caroline. Not yet. Not until we know more. Damon might still be out here somewhere."

"All the more reason for us not to be," Caroline muttered under her breath and Stefan had the good manners to pretend not to hear. It wasn't that Caroline was scared of Damon it was just...well, okay, she was kind of scared of Damon Salvatore. The guy was crazy, after all, even more so now, and he'd kicked her and Stefan's asses earlier before locking them both in the basement cell. Caroline was still sore about that – she'd broken a nail helping Stefan break the cell door down so they could get out. Being choked with a makeshift noose hadn't been fun either and she really didn't want to be traipsing through the woods late at night chasing after a homicidal maniac. Caroline had seen enough late night movies to know what happened to cute blondes who did that, and hello, she'd already died once this year, she so didn't want to give an encore performance.

"Stefan, seriously," She began again when it was clear that Stefan was totally absorbed in his 'must find my batshit crazy brother' mission that he wasn't thinking. "Shouldn't we be calling Bonnie about the barrier-thingie, and you know, having like a war council to discuss the fact that something freaky is going on...besides the fact that Damon's on a crazy-ass rampage?"

Stefan stopped tramping through the woods to face her. "Bonnie?" He blinked looking momentarily embarrassed and Caroline could tell he'd been so involved in his track down Damon mode he hadn't twigged that magic barrier equals magic equals we should really call Bonnie who's a witch and might know something about that. "You're right Caroline." He admitted and Caroline beamed (she never got tired of hearing those words). "You _should_ call Bonnie. In fact it might be best if you go back into town. I'll stay out here awhile; see if I can pick up Damon's trail."

"Stefan," Caroline knew she was whining, but sometimes whining was what was needed to get things done. "Damon's probably back in town now too. I mean what if that's why the truck crashed? It hit the barrier and Damon was in the truck and that made it go splat. That could happen right? He probably realised he couldn't leave the county and headed back to Mystic Falls." Seeing that Stefan was still not convinced Caroline decided to play her trump card. "He could be on his way to Elena's _right now_; all crazy and pissed...and really, _really_ hungry."

Stefan was clearly having a real brain-drain day because the way his eyes went wide and then his frown lines descended on his brow made Caroline think that even his Damon/Elena paranoia wasn't working at full capacity if he needed her to point out this pretty obvious danger.

"Let's go," he said shortly, immediately blurring back to the road where they'd parked Caroline's car. Smiling triumphantly while silently congratulating herself on her impeccable powers of Stefan-empathy Caroline blurred to catch up to him.

She cleared the tree-line still revelling in her own power, which was why it _really _sucked when Mister pulpy-face-no-heart-dead-guy grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into a tree trunk. Wide eyed Caroline grappled with the cold dead hands clawing at her throat and shoved the corpse away from her. He staggered back, head lolling at a revolting angle, mouth gaping open, hole still in his chest. Uttering a guttural moan dead-guy lunged again, swinging fists that didn't work properly as he snatched at her. Caroline blurred away, twisting around so she could stare, open mouthed, as the corpse shambled across the road after her.

"Zombie?" Caroline squeaked not sure if she was more shocked or outraged. "There are _zombies_ in this town now? No _freaking _fair!"


	11. Chapter 11

_Be still my heart_

"Stefan!" Caroline yelled as she continued to back away from not-as-inanimate-as-he-should-be Dead-Guy who watched her with filmy fish-eyes.

"Caroline," Stefan blurred back to her having noticed that she wasn't right behind him as she should have been. He came to an abrupt halt when he saw the zombie. Caroline glanced at him, able to note yet another new expression upon his face. She instantly dubbed the look of stunned surprise his _wtf_ face. "What the fuck?" Stefan hissed (proving she had categorised correctly) staring at the corpse dragging itself forward pretty fast considering Dead-Guy was kind of mangled already.

"Yeah," Caroline nodded vigorously as they both began backing away. It wasn't fear motivating them so much as a profound sense of unreality; vampires, witches, and werewolves were all fine but zombies were a whole other category of weirdness even for Stefan. "We have zombies now." She told him with a brittle smile. "How come you didn't tell me there were zombies Stefan? Because, just saying, this _so_ comes under the whole baby vamp instruction manual thing."

"A zombie?" Stefan was still hung up on that fact. "Caroline – I've never seen a zombie outside a Romero film."

"Oh," Caroline's heart sank because if the hundred and sixty-two year old didn't know about zombies that made the situation so much worse. "Well, hey! Now you have." She beamed tightly trying not to flinch as Mr. Dead-Guy started poking at the hole in his chest with scrabbling fingers. "So what do we do _now _Stefan?"

The resounding lack of an answer to her question from her mentor in all things undead was really, really not what Caroline had wanted to hear.

* * *

"Stefan, when you get this message – call me."

Huffing in frustration Elena threw her cell onto the dash as she started her car, glancing swiftly over to the passenger seat. Damon was slumped, head against the door's window glass, more asleep than awake. It had been an interesting experience trying to sneak him out around the back of her house and into her car without Jeremy or Aunt Jenna coming out to investigate. Waiting until Jenna had gone to bed had been a risky strategy and Elena was pretty sure she'd catch hell for it later, but right now she was just glad it had worked. She peeled out of the driveway and hit the road, all her senses keyed into the slightest shift or stirring from the passenger side.

The journey to the Salvatore boarding house was uneventful except for the wild pounding of Elena's heart and the furious whirl of her thoughts. Pulling up in front of the Salvatore house Elena wasn't sure what to feel when she saw the darkened exterior and not a single light on inside. It worried her that she couldn't get through to Stefan, especially as the two hour deadline was about up, but on the other hand, Elena knew how volatile the relationship between Stefan and Damon still was, and she wasn't sure what would happen if the two came face to face right now. Damon seemed calm – passive even - with her and she wanted to keep it that way.

"Damon, come on," dashing around the side of her car she opened the passenger door and coaxed the half-conscious vampire out. "Can you walk – here put your arm around my shoulders – that's it."

It was...strange, feeling Damon's arm around her shoulders, the sudden weight of his body leaning into hers, not too much, but still noticeable in that he was trusting her to help him. It was strange to put her arm around his waist and guide him up to his own front door. Damon's silence made the whole thing even more unnerving; glancing at his face from a few inches away she saw that he was concentrating completely on just holding himself up and putting one foot in front of the other. Elena knew Damon wasn't invincible, she knew he was as susceptible to hurt as Stefan was, but she still found it very odd to actually _see_ Damon like this – needing her to help him walk.

Shoving through the (unlocked) door to the boarding house Elena slapped on the lights and readjusted her hold on the ailing vampire. "We're going upstairs, okay? Damon, answer me." She twisted into his body a little so she could grasp his chin and lift his head to meet her eyes. "I'll take you up to your room, okay Damon?"

Grey faced and soaked in sweat Damon forced his heavy-lidded eyes to focus on her. She saw him jerk his head in a slight nod, "...'kay."

"Okay," Elena repeated before pursing her lips and dragging him over to the stairs. "Grab the rail; you're too heavy for me to take all your weight. Good...okay, first step..."

To Elena the main stairs to the second floor of the house had never seemed so long. Damon did his best to lean on the rail and not her but with each step his wheezing grew worse and his shaking increased. When they finally reached the landing Damon slumped to his hands and knees, hacking black blood and coughing. Elena bit down on her lip and ran down the hallway to Damon's bedroom, flew over to his wash basin, grabbed a hand towel and soaked it in warm water. She dashed back into the corridor to see that Damon had scooted over to lean against the wall, clutching at his chest. His face was twisted in pain.

"Damon?" Dropping to her knees Elena mopped his face, wiping away the filthy blackish blood, the sweat, and the grime. "Damon it's okay. It's going to be okay."

Over and over Elena stroked his face with the wash cloth until it was too stained to use. Then she used her bare hands, sweeping his matted hair from his face, rubbing circles on his back as he choked and coughed some more. All the while she watched the pain flash across his face, watched him gasp for air, hands plucking at his ruined shirt, grasping his chest. "I'm here." She told him because there was nothing else she could give him. "I'm here."

* * *

Bonnie sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. She had a crick from poring over the old genealogy books and mementos of Bennetts' past. Glancing at the wall clock she was surprised by how late it was. Her dad was out of town, attending some convention for his job, and the house felt very empty. It was filled with that heavy emptiness that always used to creep her out back when the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of the foundations settling could still do that to Bonnie.

Dumping the old books and photo albums back into their boxes Bonnie left the boxes on the kitchen table and switched off the lights throughout the house as she made her way upstairs to bed. She hadn't found anything more on either Ambrose or Amelie in the boxes and that had left her annoyed. The cryptic message written on the back of the newspaper cutting combined with her strange dreams had definitely put her on edge. Unfortunately she was too tired to spend any more time poring over all the stuff in the rest of the boxes tonight. Tomorrow she'd try to find out if either Emily's son or daughter had left behind a grimoire – Grams kept the family spell books in a special chest still in the attic – and if that proved fruitless, well, then Bonnie figured she'd have to make a visit to the Salvatore boarding house. She wanted answers and she had the power of aneurism to help her get them after all.

* * *

"This is –wow – I didn't know the Council was into stuff like this." Alaric rubbed at the back of his neck, slouched in his easy chair and hoping that his general air of vacuous surprise came across as a little less brain dead than he currently felt. "Witches -that's – wow."

Sheriff Forbes gave him a humourless smile and sipped at the glass of scotch he'd poured for her, "But you knew about the vampires, because of your wife."

Alaric shrugged awkwardly. "It's one thing to believe in vampires after catching your wife being fed on, then to have her disappear, and make the leap that, yeah, vampires are real. It's another thing to just jump straight into the myths and legends closet with the rest of the evil fairy tales." He tried to smile but it didn't work out too well.

"I'm sorry. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to find out someone you love has become a sucker." Sheriff Forbes expression softened to something that might have been embarrassment or sympathy, perhaps a mixture of both. Alaric took a hasty swallow of his own drink, trying not to think about Caroline and the fact that not so long ago Sheriff Forbes had found out that her loved one was a 'sucker'. Sometimes his life was just too strange to dwell on. Alaric had already decided that the best option was just to go with it, and preferably, get drunk while doing so.

"So," Alaric roused himself trying to force his frazzled brain into action. "Damon called you tonight on an unknown number and told you he'd been –_compromised_ – by a witch?"

Liz nodded hunched somewhat uncomfortably in the other armchair; the battered recliner Alaric had bought second hand at a yard sale a week after arriving in Mystic Falls. It was a disturbing shade of burnt pumpkin and the Sheriff, who always looked uneasy in her own skin, looked even more so sat in it. "If anyone else had called me with a story like that I'd never believe them but…"

"But it's Damon and somehow that's enough to fry out anyone's logic sensors." Alaric nodded. "Yeah I know how that goes." He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "So witches in Mystic, huh? Who'd have guessed?"

Now Alaric wasn't a man who enjoyed lying, any more than he'd believed himself to be violent by design, but just like the violence he'd found he took to duplicity pretty well anyhow (he blamed Damon – hell, the guy deserved it).

"It seems a stretch at first," Liz agreed earnest and far too trusting under the circumstances, "but there's a pattern that tallies with what the Founders' knew about witches, especially when you consider that the Lasseter case isn't an isolated incident. There have been four other bodies turned up in a fifty mile radius of Mystic Falls – and all of them have been mutilated in some way. Add to that there are currently seven missing person cases open in Maudeville and you start to get a picture –and it's not pretty." Sheriff Forbes shook her head more intent and animated than Alaric had ever seen her. "When the Council watches for vampires these are the things we look out for too." Liz took another sip of her scotch becoming once again more contained in speech and action, "Different perpetrator this time, but a similar MO. These monsters don't tend to deviate much regardless of species."

"Right," Alaric tried to look attentive while secretly wondering how Bonnie would feel about being labelled as both a monster and simultaneously categorised in the same breath as the vampires. Not well, he imagined – and then a jolt of cold rippled his spine. Shit _Bonnie_. Was Damon trying to expose her? He'd tipped off the Sheriff to the possibility of witches in Mystic Falls –did that put Bonnie in danger? Why in hell would Damon do that?

"Look I'm willing to help, obviously," Alaric hedged when it became clear that simply nodding at the right intervals wasn't what the Sheriff was hoping for. "Damon," Alaric's lips pursed around the name slightly in annoyance, "was right about that – but I'm not sure what I can do. Witches aren't my area of expertise."

While he played along with the Sheriff Alaric tried to figure out what game Damon was playing. So far the only thing he could come up with was that the vampire was on the level. It made a crazy sort of sense if Damon's recent demented detour through memory lane had been due to a witch's spell. Of course that didn't explain _why_ Damon would call the Sheriff, blow Alaric's cover, and potentially expose Bonnie as a witch. Still it was a piece of the puzzle and Alaric now knew that HIV blood was as ridiculous a cause as he had thought it was. So that was a plus.

"Mister Saltzman – Alaric," Sheriff Forbes began tapping the bottom of her glass with the palm of one hand, "I was sceptical as well. I didn't know if I could trust you, I still have my doubts, but Damon said the town was in danger from this witch. He believed you could help me protect this town…and no one has done more to protect Mystic Falls than Damon."

Alaric winced and immediately morphed the gesture into an earnest nod of agreement, all the while silently damning Damon Salvatore and his unholy ability to lie with complete conviction straight to the lowest circle of hell.

* * *

Bonnie was in the bathroom brushing her teeth when she heard something. Her head jerked up and she stared sightlessly at her reflection in the mirror as all the small hairs on the back of her neck and arms rose up on end. She froze, toothbrush still in her mouth, paste and foam covering her mouth. She strained her ears for any sounds. There it was. The scrape of a chair across the kitchen floor, the slithery ripple as the individual runners of the venetian blinds hanging in the breakfast room brushed together, as if disturbed by something – or some_one_.

Bonnie threw down her toothbrush and wiped off her face. She grabbed her cell phone from its charger by the bed and slipped through the doorway from her room to the upstairs hall. She didn't call out but peered over the stairwell down to the ground floor. There were no lights on and she hadn't heard a car pull in to the drive or the front door open, so it couldn't be her dad home early. Rubbing her arms Bonnie resisted a shiver; the temperature in the house had dropped a couple of degrees in moments and to Bonnie the air tasted coppery, like rust or…blood.

Taking a shallow breath she gripped the banister rail and descended the stairs, calling her power as she did so. She kept her cell clasped in her hand ready to dial 911 just in case the noise had been caused by something mundane like a regular, average-Joe home invader. Bonnie had no problem setting fire to a supernatural intruder but she'd have to change her strategy for a human.

"Ready or not," she breathed out under her breath, "here I come."

* * *

"Caroline – get the car," Stefan yelled as he played duck and weave with Mr. Dead-Guy. The zombie was nowhere near as fast as they were but after Stefan had vetoed Caroline's suggestion that they just run the hell away – saying that they couldn't leave because the zombie might attack the next car load of innocent people – they had started trying to figure out how to stop it. So far that wasn't going so well.

"The car? What good would...Oh!" Caroline blurred down the road to where she had parked her car some fifty feet or so away. Stefan football tackled Dead-Guy and slammed his already pretty mushy head into the asphalt a few times. Then he leapt up and started stamping on Dead-Guy's neck, trying to kick his head off, as they both agreed that worked well in the movies.

Caroline started the car, revving the engine. Up ahead in the glare of her headlights Stefan jumped back as the zombie tried to bite a chunk out of his leg. When Dead-Guy dragged his body upright his head hung down his back flopping against his shoulder-blades in complete contradiction to what a head should do. Dead-Guy's neck had split open to the bone and sinew; to Caroline it reminded her of what her favourite Ken doll had looked like after Bonnie had bitten the head off in a jealous rage when they were seven. She shuddered and then watched Stefan dart forward, grab for the corpse's neck and...rip off his head.

"Eww...Ewww - _Gross_."

Since being smothered by Elena's evil, five hundred year old lookalike, dying, and coming back vamped-out, Caroline had been shot in the head, tortured, and pretty much experienced the life of a character in an action movie. Still despite her new-found determination to no longer be 'girlie-girl Caroline' decapitation was still not nice to watch; at all - _ever_.

Decapitation was even worse when it didn't freaking work!

Dead-Guy, now without a head, wavered on the spot, a nub of spine protruding from the stump of his neck, but did not fall down. In the movies the zombies stopped when their heads came off. Not Dead-Guy apparently. Watching the headless corpse continue to advance on Stefan, who threw the head back at the corpse before turning to blur towards the car, was one of those sights that Caroline figured would stay with her for the rest of eternity.

"Drive Caroline," Stefan threw himself into the passenger side and Caroline squeezed her eyes closed and stepped down on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward. Caroline opened her eyes, tried not to think about what she was doing as she drove straight at the corpse and hoped to God her insurance covered zombie-related damages. Dead-Guy bounced over her hood, the roof of the car and flopped onto the road behind the still moving car.

"The barrier Caroline; reverse!"

"Shut up I know!" Caroline yelled back, slamming the car into reverse inches before the front bumper hit the invisible barrier. The bump, bump as the car ran over Dead-Guy made her stomach cramp. Stefan twisted around to stare out of the back window of the car.

"Again – Caroline; it's getting up again."

* * *

Elena wrung out a fresh wash cloth of excess water and left the bathroom annex. Damon's coughing fit had finished about fifteen minutes ago and he'd been able to walk himself into his room, where he'd then proceeded to strip down to his jockey's and crawl into bed, not even seeming to notice Elena trailing behind him. That had startled her, not that Damon would want out of his filthy clothes, or that he'd strip mostly naked in front of her (she'd seen him half dressed more than once already) but that'd he'd do all that without a single smirking comment or even the eye-thing.

If she hadn't known already that there was something seriously wrong with Damon Salvatore that right there would have been all the evidence she needed. The narcissistic dick she had become inexplicably fond of was nowhere in evidence. Elena had never imagined she could miss him so much.

"Damon," hitching herself up onto his ridiculously huge bed she tugged down the coverlet so she could see him. Damon had buried his face in his pillows and his knuckles were bloodless where he clutched at the white cotton of the pillowcase. He didn't respond to his name but she knew from the tension in the muscles of his shoulders that he was still awake. "Here," she said, "I brought you something to help with the fever. Turn around." She slapped the damp cloth against his head.

Slowly Damon lifted his head a half inch from the pillow so he could roll bloodshot eyes up to look at her while fumbling one handed for the wash cloth. "...You shouldn't be here..." he croaked through dry and cracked lips. "...Haven't you learned what happens to little girls...who try to play nursemaid to sick vampires?"

"You're being a dick," Elena sighed trying not to smile. "Good. I think that's a positive sign…kinda."

Damon flopped laboriously over onto his back, coughing a little as he did so. "I'm having...a really bad day."

"Yeah, I guessed." Elena shifted so she could sit cross-legged on his coverlet. She let her eyes explore his room as Damon swiped at the sweat beading his brow with the wash cloth. The only other time she'd been in his room for any extended length of time had not been under the best of circumstances, as Damon had so helpfully alluded to, but all the same Elena couldn't help being curious. His room was very different from Stefan's. It sort of reminded her of a showroom; there was something not very lived in about all the minimalist grandeur that made Elena vaguely sad.

"How do you feel?" She asked resisting the desire to reach out and touch his cheek. She couldn't explain why, but now Damon seemed more like himself she felt her barriers coming back up against him. Maybe because she could see that Damon's walls were back up behind his eyes as well.

"How do I feel?" He asked her incredulously still fussing with the wash cloth. "I feel like a witch has put a curse on me so she can drive me insane and use my awesome undead body to enact her fucked up revenge on anyone she feels like." Damon closed his eyes and pressed the crown of his head back into his pillows before forcing his chapped lips into an insincere smile. "What about _you_ Elena? How are _you_ doing?"

* * *

Bonnie had never been a fan of horror movies, not the ones that involved hot girls being incredibly stupid while axe-wielding nut-jobs chased said hot girls through their darkened houses in the middle of the night at any rate. Those had always rankled her feminist nerves. She'd always wondered why the girl didn't just get the hell out of her house or call the cops or do something, anything at all, instead of slowly creeping through the house looking for death.

Now she knew – it was a freaking instinct of idiocy, like a dormant lemming chromosome left over in the human genome. That was the only explanation for why Bonnie was presently living up to every bad horror movie cliché she'd ever known. Yet despite knowing she was being stupid she couldn't stop. This was her house damn it - and she was a kickass witch who could light fires with her mind. She was not so dumb bimbo victim and she would not hide in fear.

The shadows were all shades of grey to Bonnie, familiar furnishings taking on sinister dimensions as her eyeballs threatened to pop out of her sockets. She switched on every light in the house as she made her way through the rooms of the downstairs, but still the light didn't seem to illuminate. If anything it seemed like the electric lighting was just a flimsy veil hiding the true darkness that always lurked beneath. The house was so _cold_. The air seemed to tingle with an icy chill that reminded her of the static-y bite of a winter's day before a snow storm.

She could still smell blood.

Bonnie hesitated just before she reached the breakfast room. She didn't consciously stop but suddenly her feet had rooted themselves to the hallway carpet and her knees locked in place. If the house had been cold before, then the breeze coming from the breakfast room was positively arctic in comparison. Bonnie could feel the bone gnawing cold seeping through the open doorway into the hall. It almost seemed like she should be able to see frost forming, or her own breath puffing white and billowy. The innocuous buzz of the refrigerator was the only sound; Bonnie's hand clenched around her cell phone.

She really didn't want to enter that room. Yet she knew she had to.

She called up a specific number on her cell, breathing in lightly and quickly as she stood transfixed in her hallway. She listened to the sound of the phone ringing on the other end of the connection, imagined that connection like a lifeline, giving her the courage to walk forward and breach the threshold of the breakfast room doorway.

"…oh god…" Tears pricked her eyes, Bonnie's legs shook and she wavered, one hand reaching out to grab the doorframe. On the other end of the line the call connected, joltingly and a voice from a far happier place came through. Jeremy Gilbert's voice, prosaically sleepy and normal hummed through the line, an illusion of safety Bonnie was barely aware of even as it kept her upright.

"…Ugh…Bonnie…what…?"

Bonnie let the phone drop from her hand, clattering to the floor as her feet propelled her across the room to where the boxes of Bennett memorabilia she had previously packed away so carefully were now spread across the table in tattered strips, the contents flung across the room like the remnants of a tornado. There was a single clear space made on the table and someone (something?) had gouged a jagged message into the varnished wood a half inch deep.

_He died to stop me – and he failed._

Punctuating that one taunting sentence was a squishy, purplish lump of meat. The scent of rust and blood that Bonnie had smelt throughout the unnaturally cold air was coming from that fleshy lump. Bonnie shook her head, wordlessly refuting what her eyes wanted her to see. It wasn't possible, wasn't possible; was _not_ possible. Wasn't, wasn't, wasn't.

"…Bonnie…Bonnie are you there? What's wrong…Bonnie!" Jeremy's voice was tiny and distant, a voice from another place, another world, far away from this pocket of terror Bonnie was trapped in. She heard it but nothing could snap her attention from the...the thing on her table.

A heart - a human heart, ventricles severed, oozing, slimy. It was just sat there on the table where she ate her Froot Loops every morning. Bonnie's fingers twitched at her sides as she began to shake, power surging inside her as she fought not to scream. The cupboards and drawers began to shake, the blinds scraping together sandpaper rough and wild. The pepper shaker flew across the room and one of the old Bennett photo albums burst into flames. Bonnie didn't notice, not even when the sprinklers activated and the smoke detector started wailing.

Bonnie only had eyes for the human heart sitting on her breakfast table; the still _beating_ human heart sitting on her breakfast table.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: Hello all – I'm afraid this chapter is not the best. We're up to that awkward exposition-y stage; I promise that I'm setting up for something big but I have to build up to it with this chapter and the next and so if this chapter seems a little choppy that's why. Please bear with me, it will all be worth it ;)_

* * *

_Dead men do tell tales_

"Damon?" Elena shoved her hair behind her ear and gently touched Damon's shoulder. He'd drifted off into a fitful doze about five minutes ago, and she was torn between letting him sleep and finding out what he had meant when he told her a witch had cursed him.

"Damon, come on," she shook him a little harder deciding that she would let him sleep as long as he wanted just as soon as she knew what was wrong with him – and more to the point, how to fix him.

"Elena?" Damon blinked in confusion upon recognising her and roused himself a little more, lifting his head off the pillows and swallowing back a moan as pain coursed through his brain. He turned to look at her, noticing that she was sitting cross legged on his bed while he was tucked in under the covers. He quirked an eyebrow, his face pale and fever burned. "Not that I'm complaining," he began his voice a hoarse ghost and the smirk not exactly up to his usual arrogant prick standards, "but usually when I dream of you in my bed you're wearing," he eyeballed her sensible blue scoop neck shirt and jeans, "...a whole lot less."

Sighing Elena ignored that completely. "You said a witch cursed you, what did you mean?"

"Pardon?" Damon gave her confused face to the power of ten and tried to sit up. His arms couldn't take his weight and he thudded back against the pillows gracelessly. His expression was a picture and under other circumstances Elena might have smirked when Damon glared and demanded: "Okay...who vervained me?" Once again he struggled upwards. Rolling her eyes in exasperation Elena reached out and pressed her hand against his chest, applying pressure until Damon stopped fidgeting.

"Damon lie down, you have a fever. You shouldn't be moving around too much." When he opened his mouth to argue, no doubt along the lines that he was a vampire ergo couldn't catch fevers, Elena pressed her fingers to his lips, pretty confident the semi-intimate contact would shut him up at least long enough for her to get a word in. She was right. Damon froze, eyes rooted to hers.

"You're ill," she repeated firmly maintaining eye contact and keeping her fingers to his lips. "Stefan was trying to help you but you attacked him and locked him and Caroline in the basement - then you came to me and asked me to help you. You said there was someone in your head doing this to you - do you remember?"

"I did what?" This time Damon managed to propel himself upward in bed, dislodging Elena's hand in the process. He slumped heavily against his headboard, face contorted into a scowl. "Why would I harm my brother?" Wide earnest blue eyes stared into Elena, the same eyes, full of pain and an aching kind of innocence, she had seen in her backyard when he had told her about the holes in his mind. "Stefan...he's all I have left. He's the only person who ever believed in me...why would I hurt him?"

Elena opened her mouth, trying to find something to say, because really, what a loaded question, but then Damon grabbed his head in his hands and groaned deep in his throat.

"No wait...why _wouldn't_ I hurt Stefan?" He asked speaking quickly in an airy tone Elena knew and worried over, "Why wouldn't I hurt Stefan? Saint Stefan the Martyr." His face twisted. "Lock me in the fucking basement like a dirty little secret. He's lucky I didn't rip out Blondie's heart and force feed it to him."

"Damon!" Elena snapped, heart tripping in her chest. She had no idea what was going on with him, except that he wasn't making any sense. Damon's head whipped around to look at her and his eyes were wide.

"What was that?" He demanded.

Elena boggled at him. "You're asking me? I'm not the one arguing with myself."

"Ugh," Damon smacked the back of his head against his headboard, once, twice, three times. He glared up at the ceiling, head tilted back and eyes blazing. "Damn it, stop fucking with my brain."

Elena had had enough of this. Shifting to her knees on his bed Elena repeated the trick from her backyard and grabbed Damon's face between her palms, turning his head until she could hold his eyes. "Damon - what's going on with you? Tell me." She insisted, leaning into him until he could look nowhere but at her. Damon stilled instantly, hands curling around her wrists but not trying to pry her off. He shuddered, expression twisting as if in pain or distaste.

"Amelie Bennett," he hissed. "Emily's dead fucking daughter is trying to possess me."

"What?" Elena's hands relaxed against his cheeks in surprise and it was only his own grip on her wrists that kept her hands from falling away completely. "Damon that makes no sense; Emily's..," Elena shook her head and tried to pull away. "You're confused, delirious. I'm going to get you some blood. Wait here."

"No." Damon yanked on her wrists, pulling Elena off balance so she fell against him. "No blood." Immediately Elena shoved him, trying to sit up and get free of the suddenly painful grip he had on her wrists.

"Damon let go."

Damon didn't let go but instead he clasped her face in his large hands, mirroring the way she had held him moments before. His eyes were wide, alarmed. "No blood Elena. Promise me. That's how she's doing this to me. She's using the blood against me."

Elena stared at him, confused, half-way angry but mostly worried. Damon seemed to be vacillating between moods faster than most people could blink and Elena wasn't stupid, she knew that she was in an incredibly dangerous position dealing with a delirious vampire who could snap her neck right this instance if he chose to. "Damon let go of me, now." She said in a low commanding voice. "I won't give you blood okay, but you need to let me go."

He did, looking a little offended. "Jeez Elena I'm not going to hurt you. I wouldn't, you know that."

"I know that the last thing you _want_ to do is hurt me." She agreed sliding off the bed and moving away to his overstuffed leather easy chair, keeping her eyes on him the whole time. "I also know that you attacked Alaric, Stefan, and Caroline today. You're not in control. You told me so yourself. I want to help you, Damon, but I need you to tell me what's going on. I need you to explain it to me because right now I don't even know if you're rational."

Damon just looked at her for a long moment and Elena didn't even try and understand the expression on his face or the facets of emotion tightening the skin around his mouth and eyes. She simply stared back at him, implacably. Finally Damon broke eye contact, letting his head drop back against his headboard again. He sighed, a hitching, exhausted exhalation.

"Okay Elena...let me tell you a bedtime story." Opening his eyes Damon shifted so he could look at her, looking as tired as he sounded. "The year was 1900 and I was just a simple minded young vampire who happened to have had the _huge_ misfortune of making a deal, some thirty-odd years earlier, with a witch. A deal that involved her two children, Ambrose and Amelie Bennett..."

* * *

1900 September 14th: sixty seconds after setting foot into the pantry the vampire knew he was in trouble. As he had suspected he found two bodies lying on the ground beside shelves of homemade jams and jars of pickles. The larger of the two, a girl in a summer dress almost black with blood stared up at him from the floor with a vaguely accusing, waxy look on her face. The child, crumpled and pathetic beside the cool chest lay with his back to the doorway. Blood formed a tacky, tar like trail across most of the floor.

"Well this is depressing." Sighing the vampire crouched beside the girl with the intention of closing her eyes and brushing her skirt back down passed her knees. It was then that he felt it, a breath of sudden chill, like phantom fingers tickling the back of his neck. He jerked his head up and turned back towards the doorway.

"Ambrose? Are you playing with your magic tricks, again?"

The temperature in the pantry had plummeted and there was a current of something difficult to define in the atmosphere; it scalded his tongue like burnt tin. He had spent enough time with witches, particularly those of the Bennett persuasion, to recognise magic on the air. The vampire made to rise when he didn't get an answer and it was then that cold, dead hands grabbed his wrist.

"What in the world...?"

Since dying some thirty-six years earlier the vampire had thought himself fairly well versed in life (or death's) vagaries and peculiarities. Still the left hook to the jaw the (previously) very dead girl delivered to him at that moment was quite beyond his expectation.

The vampire staggered, reeling backward into the wall of the pantry in complete surprise. Too startled for witticism he grappled with the previously inanimate corpse now trying to claw his eyes out. The dead young girl, who couldn't have been more than sixteen, flew backwards into a row of shelves, crashing to the floor along with a large number of bottled fruit preserves. The smell of apricot jam mingled disturbingly well with that of rot and fetid blood.

"Vampire!" From the sitting room of the house Ambrose's voice rose up a notch in concern and was followed by the heavy crash of something, perhaps a body, thudding into furniture. Glass broke, Ambrose swore and the cold, burning tin reek of magic grew ever more pervasive.

Shaking off his surprise at the unexpected attack the vampire turned around, intending to blur back to Ambrose, only to have his foot pulled out from under him by the child's corpse. Grabbing the doorframe to stop himself falling face first onto the bare floorboards the vampire kicked the dead boy in the face as the child bit him on the ankle.

"Get off me you little wretch." He kicked again sending the small body flying across the room to crash into the sticky mess of fruit syrup and broken glass by the girl's body. He watched as the two corpses regained their feet awkwardly. The sight was as obscene as it was mesmerising.

"What manner of magic is this?" He whispered as he stared at the two dead children.

Beyond the clotted lumps of apricot slicking the girl's dull mousey hair and the little boy's sleeves the vampire noted the filmy flatness to their eyes, the slack hang of their open mouths and the telltale bruised grey-blue pallor to their flesh. Yes, without question this girl and the boy were undoubtedly dead, and in quite a different way to the vampire himself. Whereas he had most certainly left the mortal coil, he was not exactly dead either -merely differently alive – while these two, bloody gaping holes in gingham dress and hand-me-down white shirt where their hearts had been wrenched from their bodies - were in a far more deceased state than he had ever experienced. How was it possible they could continue to move without their hearts? Even vampires needed a heart to function.

"Well isn't this something." Narrowing his eyes he watched them approach him; body loose and fluid and slow grin stretching his lips, merely awaiting his moment to strike.

"Vampire – get your no good damn foolin' ass back here!" Ambrose bellowed, his shout once again punctuated by the sound of a body hitting something breakable.

"I'm a little preoccupied at present, Ambrose." The vampire lashed out when the girl shuffled within his reach. Clasping her head between his palms he jerked his wrists and snapped her neck; the crack was satisfying but alas she did not drop as he wanted her too. "Damn it."

The dead boy lunged for his legs, wrapping dead arms around his waist and digging blunt little teeth into the flesh of his stomach. The vampire swore low in his throat and grabbed both shambling corpses in one hand each. Hefting the boy off his feet he smashed their two heads together hard enough to shatter bone into fleshy pulp and then shoved them, in a tangle of limbs, back into the room. Not waiting to watch them get up again the vampire turned and blurred out of the pantry to find the warlock and demand some answers.

* * *

"Bonnie? Bonnie – open up! Bonnie!" Jeremy hammered on the door to the Bennett house, kicking it in frustration when he still couldn't get an answer. He could hear the high-pitched wail of a smoke detector going off somewhere in the house but the door was strong solid wood and try as he might Jeremy wasn't going to be kicking it in anytime soon.

Stepping back off the front stoop he looked up at the brightly lit house; it looked like every light in the house had been switched on, but none of the windows were open, and unlike his own house, there wasn't a convenient porch roof to climb up on. Cursing under his breath Jeremy ran around the back of the house, scrambling over the green painted wooden gate leading to the Bennett backyard.

"Bonnie!"

Running around the corner of the house Jeremy immediately saw the shattered glass glinting in shards all over the paved patio – glass from the wrecked French doors of the Bennett breakfast room. The venetian blinds lashed and swirled like the heads of a beige hydra through the jagged holes in the glass doors. Despite the night being mild it seemed like an arctic gale was raging inside the Bennett house as Jeremy ran forward. Along with a weird smell like burning foil wrap Jeremy recognised the unmistakable acrid reek of smoke.

"Bonnie."

Jeremy was brought up short just before the French doors by a wall of stinging cold. It hit him like solid stone and sucked the air from his lungs. Gasping open mouthed Jeremy crumpled to one knee feeling like he'd just been tackled by the entire Mystic Falls High School football team. His palms crunched into the fragments of broken glass as he struggled to rise. He kept his eyes glued to the sight of his girlfriend standing in the middle of her kitchen, framed in fire.

* * *

"Oh my god," Caroline clenched her fists to her sides. "Why won't it just stop moving?" She stared down at the bloody, broken and almost unrecognisable as human remains of the still twitching zombie wide eyed. "Six times, Stefan; we ran it over with my car _six times_. You ripped its head off. What the freaking hell does it take to kill a zombie in this town?"

"More than we've got apparently." Stefan's mouth twitched in a wry grimace as he stood beside her watching the splattered zombie twitch.

"Ugh, I'm so glad vampires can't throw up." She groaned feeling her stomach roil, and trying hard not to notice that – despite not having a head and now missing a foot – the zombie was still trying to stand up.

"Actually," Stefan said staring down at the zombie with the same dazed and transfixed look of horror on his face that adored Caroline's own, "as long as we maintain a proper diet vampire bodies function just like a human's; including being able to throw up."

"Oh," Caroline said shakily before swallowing convulsively as her stomach swallow dived towards her feet. "Excuse me." Blurring away to the side of the road Caroline then proceeded to be violently and thoroughly sick. When she was done she stumbled over to lean against her car, very definitely not looking over to the zombie smeared across the asphalt. Stefan came over to her wearing his concerned face.

"Are you okay?"

Caroline blinked at him hastily wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Uh...no. No Stefan. I'm not okay." Her face creased a whisper away from tears. "There are bits of dead-guy all over my car." She gulped. "Mom will kill me when she sees all the dents in the paintwork and..._and_...I just threw up all over my shoes." Throwing her hands up in the air she turned on Stefan. "This night officially sucks _major_ monkey balls."

Stefan's lips quivered even as his eyebrows threatened to cause fissures across his brow. Not sure quite what to say – or what he should comfort her about first the shoes or the car – Stefan decided the best thing to do was simply to gather Caroline into a hug. Caroline hugged back, with interest, and for a moment they both tried not to think about the horrible scrabbling noises the two unbroken fingers on the zombies remaining functional hand were making as they scratched at the asphalt.

Finally Stefan decided he couldn't put matters off any longer. Gently he pried the blonde girl off him. "Caroline, why don't you take a walk out into the woods for a minute, okay?"

She stared at him, "What, why?"

Stefan sighed. "I don't know how we can permanently kill a zombie, but we can't leave it on the road like that. For all we know the thing will start regenerating like a vampire."

"What? No freaking way." Caroline whipped her head around to stare at the splattered mess on the road. "You think it's going to put itself back together? How is that fair?"

"Caroline," Stefan caught her by the shoulders and held on until she turned large, limpid eyes back to him. "I don't know that it will." He grimaced. "It's unlikely that it will. A vampire couldn't heal from a decapitation, but it doesn't matter. I need to get the remains off this road." His eyes flickered guiltily away towards her car.

If possible Caroline's eyes widened even more. "You want to..." her gaze flashed from the pasty, twitchy mess on the road to her car and back to Stefan's face. "No...not my _car_ Stefan. I like this car. I don't want pureed zombie all over my trunk. Please. Can't we just leave it?"

"You know we can't," Stefan squeezed her shoulders a little trying to be firm but reassuring, "Caroline. I promise you. I will pay for your car to be repaired. I'll buy you a whole new car if you want. But right now I need you to take a walk while I...get the zombie off the road."

"Oh no," Caroline jerked out of his arms. "Uh-uh. I don't think so; none of that macho crap." Caroline glanced quickly to the mess on the road and squared her shoulders. "It's my car. So I'm gonna help." She narrowed her eyes at Stefan. "No arguments, Stefan."

He smiled faintly, eyes warm, but shook his head, "You don't have to. Caroline, you've been brilliant tonight. You don't need to prove anything. I've...had a lot of experience dealing with bodies. Let me do this for you –as a friend."

Caroline hesitated, "It's going to be really icky isn't it?"

Stefan nodded, "Yes."

Caroline hesitated some more; on the one hand, she wanted to prove she was capable of handling whatever squishy, icky craziness this vampire lifestyle threw at her, on the other hand she really, really did not want to spend any time at all scraping bits of zombie off the road. It wasn't like they even had a shovel. Licking her lips Caroline decided there came a point when even the most kickass vamp babe called it a night and let her mentor handle the menial labour.

"Okay," She turned her brightest smile on Stefan. "You know, I think I will take a breather for a few minutes." Her eyes skittered to the road and then away, "Um...call me when you're done, 'kay?"

"Sure," Stefan agreed, but he was talking to the empty air, Caroline was already well out of ear shot. Smiling softly Stefan shook his head affectionately before turning around to deal with the zombie.

* * *

"Bonnie – damn it, Bonnie, get out of there!"

Feeling like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders Jeremy forced his way, on hands and knees, across the patio and through the broken French doors into the Bennett breakfast room. Staying low he still choked on a mouthful of thick smoke as he looked up, eyes beginning to stream as the stale water from the pretty ineffective sprinklers soaked into his clothes. Bonnie's kitchen table was on fire, brilliant golden flame dancing over the wood like sunlight on the surface of a pond. There were also smaller smouldering fires where what looked like piles of old newspaper had caught light in various places across the room. Not that Jeremy paid any of that all that much attention. He only cared about Bonnie.

"Bonnie?"

She stood in the centre of the room, her hair lifted off her face and flying about her head driven by a frigid gale that wrapped around her, buffeting her clothes and swiping the two lone tears streaking her cheeks away even as they fell. Her face had fallen into the remote (slightly scary) lines of deep concentration she wore when she worked her magic. Her body was rigid, taut like a coiled spring, and blood dripped from her clenched fists onto the soaked linoleum floor. She was staring fixedly, yet vacantly, at the burning table. When she spoke, her voice was as bloodless and distant as a ghost memory.

"I have to burn it Jeremy. It's the only way. I have to make it stop."

Jeremy reached out to the countertop and hauled himself up, hunching against the icy, clawing fingers of the cyclonic gale that seemed to exist only in Bonnie's breakfast room.

"Are you crazy?" When he tried to reach for her the wind knocked him back, ice chills scouring his lungs as he staggered against the countertop. "Damn it Bonnie -you're gonna set the whole house on fire."

"I have too," Bonnie repeated even as her body began to shake, shuddering so hard he thought for sure that her legs were about to give way underneath her. "I can still feel it beating. I can _feel_ it Jeremy. I can feel it beat."

The blazing table collapsed, one of the legs falling away like kindling. The table toppled and something small and dark in the white hot centre of the liquid flames spilled across the floor. Jeremy wasn't sure what it was, except that Bonnie's eyes were rooted to it. He felt a flare of heat and the flames intensified, stretching out from the table to the floor, sizzling and smouldering as the puddles of sprinkler water doused them for a moment, but then the water itself lit up, ignited by Bonnie's power. Jeremy watched as snaking tendrils of fire raced towards her. His stomach flip-flopped as he realised she was bare foot - bare foot and standing in a circle of flame.

"Shit – Bonnie."

He lunged, and in that moment not even the supernatural wind could stop him, darting forward towards the flames. He seized Bonnie around the waist and lifted her up off the ground at the same instant the fire engulfed the linoleum. The taste of tin and smoke scorched his throat as he stumbled backward, still holding Bonnie in his arms. He twisted around, ducked down and threw Bonnie's rigid, shaking body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, dashing out of the French doors. Less than thirty seconds later, the tremendous heat of the dancing flames slashed across his back and shoulders as the fire burst through the doors after him and the Bennett breakfast room became a raging inferno.


	13. Chapter 13

_Phantom menace_

"Yeah – 1530 Maple Lane; uh-huh the house is on fire. No, I don't think anyone's inside. Yeah, okay, whatever...just hurry okay? The freaking house is on fire."

Jeremy disconnected the call and shoved his cell back in his back pocket before racing back down the street to Bonnie. He'd left her sitting on a packing crate behind a drycleaners a block away from her house and she was still sitting there, not moving, just staring into space in the exact same, vacant (extremely creepy way) she had been when he'd dashed back to check on her house. He approached her warily.

"I called the fire brigade. They...uh...they might be able to save your house." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean the breakfast room is toast, but it didn't look like the fire had spread to the upper floor."

Slowly Bonnie turned to him, her eyes too large in her face. "I already stopped the fire. I think it's burned up now. I don't hear it beating anymore."

"What Bonnie? What's stopped beating?" Jeremy asked, exasperation snapping through his voice. "Christ, you set fire to your own house while you were still _in_ it. What the hell is going on?"

"I..," Bonnie swallowed and the strange shattered look on her face shifted into something less dazed and more Bonnie-like. She clenched her bloodied fists and shook her head clearing it. "I need to go to the Salvatore boarding house right now." Jumping up Bonnie would have fallen if Jeremy hadn't been there to steady her.

"Whoa – hey, easy; look just sit down a minute, okay? I think you're in shock or something." He pushed Bonnie back down onto the crate and she let him. Once he was sure she wasn't going to try and stand again, or do anything else crazy, he squatted down in front of her on the concrete.

"Seriously Bonnie, just tell me what's up, okay? I wanna help you." He reached out to gently uncoil her fists, smoothing out her palms and wincing when he saw the deep, crescent moon gouges her nails had made in the soft flesh. He tangled his fingers with hers and Bonnie squeezed back after a moment.

"There was," she took a steadying breath, "there was a human heart sitting on my table. Jeremy. Someone got in my house and left a still _beating_ human heart on the table for me to find."

A year ago Jeremy would have been shocked, hell he would have thought whoever told him a bullshit story like that was either high or trying to screw with him, but that was a year ago and a whole hell of a lot had happened since then (including the fact that Jeremy had kind of been murdered – although that hadn't stuck). Now, the idea that someone would leave his witch girlfriend body parts was neither that shocking nor strange. Which was just so incredibly fucked up Jeremy didn't even want to think about it.

"Huh," he breathed out. "Yeah that's kind of twisted." He looked up at Bonnie, saw that her eyes were still too wide and the whites too prominent. "What else happened Bonnie? What aren't you telling me?"

His girlfriend squeezed his hands tightly in hers, "I had a dream Jeremy...I think it was a premonition, or a warning or something." Her eyes narrowed, something cold and fierce glinting in those usually bright depths, "It had to do with Damon."

Jeremy felt his own eyes widen. Despite the fact that the guy had killed him that one time, Jeremy was pretty cool with Damon. Yeah, Stefan's brother was a whack-job, but fuck, he was also a vampire and Jeremy kind of thought being batshit crazy _and_ being a serious badass kind of went hand in hand anyway. Jeremy also appreciated the fact that Damon would literally walk through fire for Elena, and when your sister happens to be the doppelganger of a psychotic bitch vampire, having a kill-happy vampire on side to head off trouble (sometimes literally) was totally a bonus. Still he knew that Bonnie and Damon only just barely tolerated each other so if Bonnie was having dreams about Stefan's big brother that could only be bad news.

"Shit," he breathed out when it was obvious Bonnie was waiting for him to respond. "Tell me everything."

* * *

September 14th 1900: The vampire spat stale rotted blood out of his mouth as he dug his hands deep into the old grandmother's chest cavity, wrists sliding past cold, slimy deflated lungs to wrap around the flexible steel of her spine. _Crack_. Yanking hard he was able to snap the spine tearing and pulling until he had bent the old woman in half. The muscles of his forearms burned with exertion as the dead octogenarian's pallid flesh tore like wet paper. Once he had bifurcated grandma he threw the two halves onto the growing pile of dead body parts and stepped away.

"You owe me a new suit Bennett," he growled at the warlock, shaking the excess blood and viscera from his ruined sleeves. Shooting Ambrose a dark look he tossed his head. "I'll add it to the bill along with that explanation."

"Quit your bitchin' vampire," the warlock swiped sweat from his brow and raised his hands, eyes fixed on the macabre funerary pyre they had erected in the pantry of the house. A flare of prickling heat licked through the air and a moment later the bodies began to smoulder, little golden flames dancing happily over the bits and pieces.

The vampire stepped back out of the pantry and further down the corridor. He wasn't especially pyro-phobic but his condition did make him somewhat flammable, so he saw no reason to take any unnecessary risks. He walked out of the house and left Ambrose to clean up.

Being outside the hellhole of a house wasn't much of an improvement. The ungodly reek of decay and carnage clung to every inch of his skin and clothes and the vampire seriously regretted not having the foresight to pack a change of attire. The sticky, invasive heat of the Mississippi late summer did not help matters at all. On top of all that he was also hungry; ripping apart ambulatory corpses had caused him to work up an appetite and the only potential meal for miles around was the very same warlock he was supposed to be allied with. Not that this was all that much of a deterrent; the vampire didn't really hold much stock with the notion of partnership anymore, and he didn't allow trifling matters like emotional attachment to get between him and a meal. Alas the real reason the warlock was off the menu was because Ambrose could throw him twenty feet through the air with his mind and then set him on fire.

"All done?" He asked pithily still facing away from the house, but able to feel the friction and heat of the fire and smell the noxious smoke emanating from the wooden structure all the same. A moment later the warlock sighed, flopping down onto a dead fall log beside him and lighting his pipe.

"She took their hearts with her; only other way I knows how to stop 'em is to rip 'em apart and burn what's left. Them poor bastards are dead; don't feel pain, can't be reasoned with, got no sense of self-preservation like a vampire; only ways to stop 'em is to destroy the body."

"_What_ were they?" The vampire dropped down to sit beside the warlock, fishing around in his own blood soaked shirt pocket for his tobacco and papers.

"I'm dead. I appreciate that death isn't all that much of an impediment, but I still have to obey certain rules. Stake my heart, I'm dead. Burn me – I turn to ash and die. I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't get far without a head." Licking the papers to seal the tobacco inside he stuck the cigarillo in his mouth and turned to Ambrose who handed him the still burning match he had used to light his pipe. "What's so special about _them_," He jerked his head towards the burning house, "that they get around the rules?"

"Necromancy," Ambrose snorted, "Black magic, vampire. Different from what keeps you walking but a dark power all the same." He shook his head eyes distant as he puffed smoke out of his nostrils. "Death magic's all about corruptin' life's order. The heart and blood; them things keep a body alive. You vampires are just parasites, clinging to the living, pretending you ain't dead as any other corpse, but take your heart, and sure as day, you die."

"Yes obviously. Tell me something I don't know." Rolling his eyes the vampire sucked in a draft of tobacco smoke lustily. "Your prejudice against vampires notwithstanding, is there a point to this tirade?"

Ambrose glanced at him and almost smiled before sobering immediately. "Amelie – she took the hearts, used her necromancy to keep 'em beating. So long as a witch keeps a dead heart beatin' with magic the dead body it belongs to will keep moving. Destroy the heart and you break the spell."

"Good to know." The vampire cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. "What about killing the witch; does that break the spell?"

Ambrose pursed his lips scowling but nodded grudgingly. "Yes, vampire," He bit out. "Kill the necromancer and all their dark curses die with 'em."

"Ah," the vampire smiled. "I think I'm beginning to see why you needed me. I assume I'm here to wade through more of these walking dead, should there be any, while you take on your dear deranged sister?"

Ambrose tipped out the dregs from his pipe and did not look at the vampire sat beside him. "Somethin' like that, vampire." He agreed softly. "Something very like that."

* * *

"Zombies are real?" Elena blinked feeling like a sleeper rising from a weird dream. Damon's story had kept her completely immersed and when he stopped it was almost jarring.

"Yep," Damon drawled lazily, "Annoying little fuckers too."

"And you like to rip them to pieces." Elena shook her head. "That really shouldn't surprise me."

"Nope," Damon agreed, "It really shouldn't." He grinned at her, sharp and just a little malicious. "Seriously Elena, how else do you think I manage to maintain my lean, mean physique?" He gestured to his naked chest with one hand while rolling his eyebrows. "Dismemberment is the key to perfect abs."

"Okay, I'm just going to ignore that." Elena rolled her eyes (while trying really hard not to smile) and shifted in the leather armchair when she realised her foot had gone to sleep under her. "I guess I just find it hard to picture real zombies. I always thought they were sort of lame in movies." Wincing Elena stretched out her legs, uncoiling in the chair. Damon watched her, slouched against his headboard with his fingers loosely laced together over his stomach.

"And a year ago I thought werewolves didn't exist," He gave her a pointed look. "There's way more creepiness between heaven and Earth than can be dreamt of in your philosophy Elena." He smirked. Elena rolled her eyes.

"I'm reading Hamlet for school, Damon. I know that's not how the quote goes."

"Oh, oh...slings and arrows," He clutched at his chest eyes sparkling. "Here I am trying to add a bit of culture to my tale of _outrageous fortune_ and you shoot me down; harsh Elena, very harsh."

Elena smiled slightly as she shifted down in the chair, kicking off her shoes so she could prop the heels of her feet up on the edge of the bed. She twinkled her toes, gently nudging the blanket covered lump of Damon's leg. "It figures you'd like Hamlet."

"Oh?" He did the eye thing for her amusement, "Why, because I'm deep and incredibly intellectual – not to mention hot?"

"No," Elena scoffed, "because it's about a crazy person who has issues letting go – and because everyone ends up dead in the most stupid way possible by the final act."

Damon grinned, "I also like MacBeth. Wonder what that says about me?"

"That you're trying to avoid telling me the rest of the story," Elena nudged him with her foot again. "Seriously Damon, what happened with you and Ambrose?" She studied him intently. "You know, the way you describe him, it reminds me of you and Alaric. You liked him didn't you?"

Damon sighed, letting his eyes skitter away from her, more or less confirming for Elena that yes, Damon had liked Ambrose Bennett. When he looked back at her there was something like regret in his eyes, but mostly just a lot of exhaustion.

"Elena, come on." He chided tiredly. "I think you know what happened. You said it yourself: 'everyone ends up dead in the most stupid way possible'."

* * *

The sound of fire truck sirens made Jeremy jump and he turned around to look back at the road beyond the alley. The red/blue flash of the trucks racing towards Maple Lane was sort of reassuring, even though he believed Bonnie when she said that she'd stopped the fire she'd started already. Turning back to Bonnie he rubbed at his neck trying to get his head around everything he'd just heard.

"So...uh...what do you think that message meant: '_he died to stop me – and he failed_'?"

"I don't know." Bonnie came to stand beside him, rubbing her forearms and it was then that Jeremy realised that she was in her pyjamas.

Cursing himself he shrugged out of the jacket he'd flung on when he'd snuck out of his house and put it round her shoulders. "Jeez, Bonnie, we need to get you somewhere warm."

Bonnie shook her head, "I need to speak to Damon. He knows what's happening, Jeremy. I'm sure of it." She shrugged into his jacket and her fingers flexed dangerously with her next words. "And if he's involved in any way with that heart..."

"Yeah, okay," Jeremy only just managed to step away from Bonnie and tried really hard not to let it show that she was kind of scaring him right now. "What about this Amelie person? I mean it sounds like she was pretty bad news if her own brother wanted her dead."

Bonnie just shook her head again, still rubbing her arms. "I thought I felt someone – or something - in my house before I found the heart. There was this...cold...that came from nowhere, and a smell like blood. It felt like magic, but it made my skin crawl." Bonnie stepped out onto the street, being careful where she placed her feet and Jeremy winced again as he saw that she was barefoot. Man, but he wished he had a car. He'd have taken Elena's when he left the house but it hadn't been in the drive, and he didn't know where Aunt Jenna kept her keys.

"I felt that too," Jeremy hurried to her side. "When I was trying to get to you, it was freezing and I could smell something like burning metal. It reeked." He glanced at her curiously. "So is that magic? Cool, I didn't know magic had a smell."

Bonnie looked up at him as Jeremy nudged a tin can out of the way for her. "My magic isn't like that. My element is fire, what I felt tonight - there was something...rotten...about it. Wrong."

"Weird," Jeremy frowned. It wasn't like he knew much about magic but he was interested, and he tried to pick stuff up so he could talk to Bonnie about it. He wracked his brain to figure it all out. "Maybe..." He began but stopped short when someone stepped out in front of him and Bonnie a few feet ahead of them on the empty street.

"Jeremy," Bonnie's hand grasped his arm tightly her eyes fixed on the girl standing before them. She looked...wrong. She was dressed in a tiny spangled mini-dress under a varsity jacket and her pale hair fell all over her lolling head. She stood out on the empty mostly residential street like a Christmas tree in the middle of July. Jeremy noticed then that it had got a whole lot colder all of a sudden.

"Help me," the girl slurred, her voice sounding strange and distorted as she lifted her head. Lit by the streetlamps Jeremy saw that the girl's face was purplish-grey, her mouth slack and there was dried blood matting her bangs.

"Jesus," Jeremy hissed between his teeth instinctively taking a step back and trying to pull Bonnie back with him. He couldn't take his eyes away from the girl. Bonnie didn't budge, but instead let go of Jeremy and took a step forward.

"Who are you?" She demanded and her voice didn't shake. "Tell me who you are now. Believe me I will hurt you if you don't." As if to prove her point Bonnie tossed her head and splayed her fingers and Jeremy felt something like friction and electricity crackle in the air around his girlfriend as she did so.

The girl in the street tilted her head and the movement was so off, like her body was jerking on invisible strings, that Jeremy felt bile rise in his throat. "You are of my line. I can feel your power. Mama has touched you." The girl said garbled and barely comprehensible and her mouth moved wrongly, as if it couldn't form the words correctly. Jeremy noticed that the girl's chest only moved when she spoke. Jesus H. Christ. Even fucking vampires breathed.

"_Who are you_?" Bonnie held her ground. Her back ramrod straight and her head held high as a queen.

The girl rocked forward, her body jerky and her gait caught between almost falling over and a weird shuffling glide. "Yes," she hissed sibilant and creepy as hell. "Mama has touched you...I can feel her presence in you." The girl's arms reached forward towards Bonnie.

"Don't touch me." Bonnie threw up her own arm and just like that the girl was hurled backward, off her feet and into the air. She crashed into the side of a beat-up old car across the street, collapsing in a slow slide that caused her jacket to open. Jeremy's eyes threatened to bulge out of his head when he saw the black, tacky stains of blood all down the front of her teeny-tiny cocktail dress.

"Oh...whoa...does she...is that a hole in her chest?"

"Jeremy," Bonnie spun towards him, her own eyes wide. He grabbed her hand and together they ran like hell down the street.

* * *

September 19th 1900:

"Mmmm," the vampire threw his head back, eyes fluttering fast as humming bird wings as the sheer rush of sensation battered his mind. Blood, thick and hot enough to scald washed down his throat and traced his lips as he let the limp body in his arms fall to the ground. He had killed many times before in the near forty years he had survived as a vampire, but never had it given him the thrill that draining the warlock had just given him. He breathed in deeply through his nose, licked the last of the blood from his bottom lip and then looked down at the man lying at his feet. He grinned, teeth stained brown with the man's blood.

"Well if I'd known you'd taste this good I would have eaten you and your sister years ago."

"...To hell with you, vampire," Ambrose glared at him weakly from the floor, his jaundiced eyes still holding a banked fire even if his body was down about a pint or more of blood.

Chuckling the vampire tugged up his sleeve and bite into his own wrist, dropping down on his haunches to press his bloody skin to the man's lips. "Drink up and be quick about it. I'd like to kill your sister before sunup." To illustrate his point he turned to look at the sunset blushed skyline visible through the window.

"Can't believe I'm doin' this," Ambrose groaned as he lifted his head a little off the paisley rug carpeting the hotel room floor and closed his mouth around the vampire's wrist. The vampire cupped the back of his head with his free hand for support as the warlock sucked hard. "Ooh, I can tell you'd be a natural at this." Flush with witchy blood the vampire felt just a tad giddy. "That's it, drink it down, the wound will close soon."

"Enough," Ambrose shoved his wrist away, stiffly sitting up on the floor. The gash the vampire had torn open in his throat had disappeared completely, only a tacky residue of drying blood remained to mark the moment. Smirking lazily the vampire reached out a hand to swipe the blood away with his fingers, popping them in his mouth and sucking much to the warlock's annoyance.

"We need to complete the rest o' the spell before we challenge Amelie." He reminded the vampire, who had retreated to the room's bed, not bothering to remove his boots before he flopped down on the counterpane, smiling like the damned cat who caught the canary.

"And this will work, will it?" The vampire waved a hand negligently to encompass the blood exchange and the spell craft ingredients laid out inside a circle of salt on the floor at the foot of the bed.

"Amelie's channelling the powers o' the dead. You're dead, vampire. Your blood in my system should help me counter her magic, and mine in yours should keep her from gettin' t' you." Ambrose gave the vampire a dark look. "One'a the reason's I called you is because you ain't been dead all that long. If you'd never been so damn foolish as t' tangle with vampires in the first place you'd be a man o' fifty-nine now; long in the tooth but probably still alive. That fact alone is what keeps you from bein' a liability, but I ain't takin' the chance my sister can get to you."

"And what would happen if I was older?" The vampire was intrigued despite himself. In truth he knew very little of the finer detail of his vampire nature. Katherine had told him only as much as she thought prudent while he still lived – and of course she had had no opportunity to tell him anything after he turned (damn his father and the Founders' to hell and back). "Why is the fact that I'm still within the boundaries of my human lifespan so important?"

Ambrose looked up from his measuring and other associated busy-work on the floor. He squinted at the vampire curiously and then shook his head letting out a puffing sigh that was half exasperation and half amusement. "Saints preserve us, but it's a sad day when a warlock knows more about vampires than a vampire does."

"Do you want me to rip out your throat again?" Stung by the smug amusement in Ambrose's tone the vampire felt his temper flare. "If you have something significant to say, say it, before I decide to let you deal with your insane, and considerably more powerful, sister alone."

Ambrose actually chuckled. "Struck a nerve did I?"

The vampire immediately opened his mouth to offer to return the favour and strike a few of Ambrose's nerves – or better yet tear them apart - but the warlock spoke over him.

"Ain't an expert on vampires, mind, but I learned a few things." He glanced up at the vampire yellowed eyes twinkling, "Figured it was prudent seein' as I'd landed up with a vampire for a benefactor." He shrugged. "Turns out your kind go through degrees of death. You die once to turn and then, later, once you outlive your natural lifespan, your vampire nature becomes fixed. No idea what that means, but I know that if you had a century o' bein' dead under your belt you'd be helpless against a necromancer like my sister."

The vampire's eyebrows plunged down his brow in confusion. "How so? Usually the older a vampire is the stronger they are."

"And the deader," Ambrose pointed out simply. "To a necromancer the older a vampire is, the easier they fall under thrall."

* * *

"Thrall; what's that?"

Elena shifted in the chair again; her arms curled around one of the throw cushions, while her fingers absently tangled around the frayed tassels. Listening to Damon tell his tale Elena had felt like she was being transported not just back in time to the turn of the last century, but also as if she was walking in Damon's own footsteps. She didn't think he even knew he was doing it, but the casual way he threw in little descriptions, or told her about what it felt like to feed on someone's blood - all stuff she had wondered about but had always known Stefan wouldn't talk about – was incredibly fascinating.

"Tsk, what do they teach you kids these days?" Damon shook his head listlessly, slouching a little further down the bed and Elena frowned a little when she noticed the high flush creeping over his sallow cheeks. She'd actually forgotten that Damon was sick; she'd been so caught up in his story. "A thrall is...a slave, I guess?" His voice cracked a little and he swallowed hoarsely. "It's just a word for someone who's under someone else's control. Like a compelled human or a zombie controlled by a necromancer. Take your pick. It's all the same thing."

"And Ambrose was afraid that could happen to you?" Elena put the cushion aside and rose from the chair, stretching out her spine. Settling back in the chair she saw that Damon was giving her a very odd look.

"Elena that is exactly what _has_ happened to me." He cocked his head to the side. "Wicked witch cursed me, remember? Reason I'm all crazy and _starving_. God, get an attention span already. Amelie didn't get me back in the day, but she sure did this time."

Elena stared at him. "How is that possible? She'd be dead now. Witches don't have a super extended lifespan, do they?"

Damon smirked. "Not usually. And yes, Amelie is definitely dead. I made damn sure of that." He scowled. "Not that that's ever been much of a handicap to getting shit done. Jeez Elena, Emily's dead too but she still managed to screw me over a couple of months back. Fucking Bennetts, my life would be so much easier if I'd let the kids burn with Emily." He coughed, swallowing back a moan of pain as his hand moved unconsciously to his chest and a look of discomfort twitched across his face. "Damn it, starvation sucks."

Elena's head hurt; as much information as Damon was giving her it still wasn't making much sense. If talking to Stefan could sometimes feel like pulling teeth, especially when she was trying to find out stuff he didn't want her to know, then talking to Damon was the opposite. It wasn't too little information but too much. She felt like her head was spinning just trying to sort it all out.

"Wait, hold on." She said holding out her hands and making the time-out sign. "I'll get you some water." She leaned forward to brush her palm against his heated brow before padding across the room to the door. She stopped in the threshold and looked back at him. "Are you sure blood wouldn't help?"

Damon smiled at her caustically and shook his head. "If what's really happening is what I think is happening, then no, blood is not gonna help." He arched both his eyebrows. "Bourbon would be great though."

Elena gave him an incredulous look, "Uh-huh, I'm not going to enable your substance dependency Damon – so don't even try." She turned and headed down the hallway to the stairs, but she still heard Damon call after her.

"Cruel Elena – making me starve and mummify sober - and people call _me_ evil."

* * *

Jeremy ran, hand in hand with Bonnie almost half way across the town before they slowed to a wheezing stop. "Fuck." He panted finally letting go of her hand. "Was that what I think it was?"

Bonnie sucked in gulps of air and Jeremy tried not to notice how her cami clung to her upper chest and perspiration dappled her collarbone. "...Zombie...that was a zombie."

"Yeah" Jeremy nodded vigorously. "Yeah I kinda think it was."

Bonnie stared at Jeremy who stared back at her and then, inexplicably, they both fell about laughing, hysterically. Insane laughter erupted from them both uncontrollably for a good minute until Bonnie's laughter turned to choked, almost-sobs, and Jeremy held her while she trembled with spent adrenalin.

"I burned down my house," Bonnie whispered, jerking away from him and wiping at her dry cheeks. "My dad is going to kill me." She looked around her wildly at the tree lined path through the woods that led out to the boarding house. They had both run in the direction of the Salvatore place without really thinking about it. When craziness called that was just where you went in Mystic Falls.

"Hey, Bonnie," Jeremy soothed, "Hey it will be okay. You stopped the fire before things got too bad – right?" He shivered a little, wishing he had a spare jacket because now he was done running it was pretty cold out all of a sudden.

"I..," Bonnie stiffened eyes widening, "Jeremy - are you cold?"

"Uh – yeah, a little, but..." his words died off when he saw a shambling figure stumble out from the tree line dead ahead. "Oh shit, you're kidding me."

He and Bonnie immediately stood back to back as the temperature plummeted drastically and three further stumbling zombies, one of them the same girl from earlier, closed in on them from all sides.

The dead girl in the tacky dress fixed dead eyes on Bonnie. "You will help me." The girl slurred as the other three zombies, a middle aged guy in the remains of a cheap suit, an older man who looked like a hobo, and a boy who looked younger than Jeremy continued to close in.

"Who are you?" Bonnie hissed, staring fixedly at the girl while Jeremy tried to keep an eye on all three of the other corpses.

"I," the girl began.

"Am," the middle aged man continued.

"Amelie," the boy completed creepily in sync with the other two.

Bonnie's eyes sprang wide, "Amelie? You're Amelie Bennett?"

"Yessssss," the old derelict hissed through a mouthful of broken teeth. "You will help me. Mama deserves to live. Our line will be avenged." In perfect synchronicity the four corpses lurched forward. They were close enough that Jeremy was almost choking on the rank stench of blood and decay.

"Stay back." Bonnie threw up her arms and a surge of power sent the suited man flying back into a tree. "Get away from us." She shouted spinning around and narrowing her eyes on the old guy in the filthy coat. Crackling heat tore through the frigid air a second before the old guy's ragged pants leg ignited. The zombie didn't even pause as the flames ate up his leg.

"Fuck," Jeremy grabbed a broken piece of fallen tree branch from the path and swung it at the dead kid, swinging from the hip like he used to do when he played little league baseball. The branch smashed into the kid's head like a line drive and broke. The kid's head snapped hideously off-side but just like the burning old guy the kid kept coming.

"You will help me." The dead girl in her tramp dress insisted as the zombies grabbed at Bonnie and Jeremy with cold dead hands. "You _will_ help me Bonnie Bennett or you will burn with the rest of this town."


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Nerw20 - I cleaned up the language in this chapter, hope it's better for you. ;)_

_

* * *

_

_Captive hearts_

"Like hell I will." Bonnie snarled pushing her power to the limit. The three zombies flew through the air several feet and Bonnie spun to face the dead girl in the sequined dress. "I don't care who you really are or what you want; no one threatens me and my town." Her arms jerked, fingers twitching as she narrowed her eyes intently on the zombie. Standing beside her, Jeremy could taste ozone and hear a faint ringing in his ears. He shuffled a half step away from his girlfriend. He didn't know what Bonnie was doing but he really didn't want to get caught in the crossfire.

"You can't stop me." The zombie girl slurred and tried to shamble forward a step.

Bonnie clenched her fists and scrunched her brow. Her eyes smouldered with contained power. "I've faced down the Originals; do you really think you can stop _me_?"

The ringing in Jeremy's ears increased and he winced. The dead girl faltered, body shuddering. The three animated corpses on the ground began to twitch. Jeremy swallowed, throat dry and tongue heavy in his mouth. He didn't know what Bonnie was doing but he hoped she finished soon – before his brain exploded.

"Get out of that body and get out of my town." Bonnie growled, her back rigid, arms held slightly out from her body and fists clenched. The air began to swirl into a heated breeze around her feet, picking up pieces of leaf and mulch. The dead girl's body was twitching and juddering where it stood as her eyelids fluttered arythmically.

"Get out, get out; get out." Bonnie chanted her voice so low it reminded Jeremy of grinding steel and the chainsaw rumble of a rottweiler growling. The dead girl collapsed to her knees, her upper body still jerking spasmodically. The three corpses on the ground were completely still. The static heat in the air stung Jeremy's skin and the roiling wind rose in tempo, swirling in eddies around Bonnie's body faster and faster. Jeremy gritted his teeth and was alarmed when a hot wash of blood trickled from his nose.

"GET OUT." Bonnie screamed. Her own nose bleeding, eyes opening wide and wild. The dead girl's body was ploughed over, mowed flat by the force of Bonnie's power. The wind dispersed like the ground swell of a mushroom cloud, spilling outward across the path and into the trees to hit the other bodies. Bonnie sagged, falling to her knees on the path.

"Bonnie?" Jeremy grabbed her, helped her up, felt her body trembling and weak against him. He clasped her face, cupping her chin so he could tilt her head up. Bonnie's eyes rolled back in her head, barely conscious. "Hey, Bonnie, stay with me, okay?" He lowered her down to the ground again, cradling her body against his chest.

The dead body of the girl in the cocktail dress convulsed once on the bed of half-rotted leaves; her mouth opened, jaw seemingly unhinging as her spine arched upward. Jeremy watched wide eyed as a fountain of blood defied gravity to rise into the air. To the right and left of the path the same thing happened to the other three corpses. Their mouths fell open, their backs twisted, and rushing columns of black blood shot into the air.

"Whoa."

Leaping like salmon, or those fancy fountains outside the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, the four spouts of blood combined midair and exploded into a hideous shower right over their heads. Jeremy cursed and did his best to shield Bonnie from the deluge. Ducking his head, forehead pressed to Bonnie's sweaty brow, he waited a full minute, holding his breath, before cautiously lifting his head. The wooded path was silent, the bodies still and broken on the ground.

"What was that?" He breathed stunned and exhilarated in equal measure.

Bonnie stirred, "…I forced her out…the ghost…I forced her back where she came from." Her eyelids fluttered and she passed out, head falling against his shoulder.

* * *

Elena was just plucking some ice from the ice maker into a clean wash towel to take up to Damon along with a cool glass of water when she shivered abruptly standing by the sink in the Salvatore kitchen. The boarding house was huge and could get pretty draughty but the sudden sharp chill that had descended on the lower floor seemed a bit much.

She stopped to check the thermostat in the main parlour before returning upstairs. Stefan usually kept the place well heated, partly due to the fact that his mostly animal blood diet meant that his body temperature ran a little lower than usual and the cold affected him more. Damon in contrast wandered around in the middle of winter in just a T-shirt and jeans, but according to Stefan this was just one of his brother's eccentricities and not some vampire perk (conversely Damon argued it was because he was naturally hot blooded and his brother was a bunny-munching pansy).

Dialling the heat up a notch Elena climbed up the stairs. It was strange but she had the ants on the skin feeling of being watched as she retraced her steps back to Damon's room. It also seemed – darker – all of a sudden, despite the fact that the upper floor of the boarding house was better lit than the downstairs and all the lights were on.

"Damon, does it feel cold in here to you?" Elena asked nudging open the door with her shoulder while juggling glass and cold compress. She stopped abruptly when she saw the vampire however.

Damon was sitting bolt upright in bed and instantly Elena knew something was wrong. She could see it in the sharp sideways cant of his head as if he was listening to something she couldn't hear, not to mention the tension in his shoulders and spine. Without answering her he slipped out of the bed. He had to catch his balance a second later as he swayed on his feet but then swooped down to shimmy back into his discarded jeans. His movements were quick and harsh and reminded her forcibly that first and foremost Damon was a predator.

"What is it?" Elena demanded putting aside the ice filled wash cloth and the glass of water and keeping her back pressed to the wall. Her eyes scanned Damon's room for potential weapons. He had less knick-knacks and breakable wooden furniture in his room than Stefan putting Elena at a disadvantage. She internally cursed herself for not coming prepared, after the last year it really wouldn't be too paranoid to start travelling with a purse full of vervain syringes and wolfsbane mace.

Damon had obviously picked up on her thoughts in that weird and disturbing way he had sometimes. He crossed his room, wrenched open a small black lacquer box that looked vaguely Asian in design and pulled a short, wicked looking blade from inside. Still silent and distracted he slapped the handle of the blade into her hand. She looked from him to the knife and back again.

"I smell blood." Damon finally told her and his voice scared her. It was too flat, all the sarcasm and mirth drained away. This was the voice of the man who had stood over Vicki's corpse and casually told her that it meant nothing to him.

All the same when he made his way, swiftly but somewhat unsteadily, out of his room and down the hallway she followed close at his heels. Elena wasn't stupid, if there was an intruder in the house sticking by the vampire with a vested interest in keeping her alive was common sense. Damon might not always be the safest guy to be around but Elena wasn't going to delude herself into ignoring the fact that he had repeatedly risked his own life to safeguard hers.

They made a sweep of all the vacant bedrooms on the second floor before heading up the attic stairway to Stefan's room. Elena scanned the hallway and tried to sniff out any hint of blood on the air, but other than the pervasive cold she couldn't sense anything. This didn't mean there was nothing wrong, just that her human senses couldn't detect it. She didn't speak and Damon prowled ahead of her in full predator mode. If he'd had pointed ears they would be pricked right now. He didn't make a sound as he moved and Elena did her level best to imitate him as much as humanly possible.

When they reached Stefan's bedroom Damon paced the outer edges of the room distractedly, tilting his head from side to side, nostrils flaring as Elena made straight for the drawer where Stefan kept a small wooden stake, and a couple of vervain syringes. Feeling better armed Elena leant against the bureau and watched Damon. He was standing by the closed doors to the balcony holding one hand out, palm flat against the air as if testing it for resistance. It wasn't as cold in Stefan's room as it had been on the lower floors, but there was still something off about the atmosphere that caused gooseflesh to rise over Elena's skin.

"It's not a vampire," Damon's voice made her jump. "That stake won't help you."

* * *

"What do you mean it just stopped?" Caroline demanded as she pushed her battered car towards the boarding house as fast as she thought she could get away with. The last thing she wanted was to be pulled over by one of her mom's deputies with a corpse wrapped in old picnic blankets stowed in her trunk.

"Exactly what I said," Stefan answered just the barest hint of exasperation colouring his tone. He continued to play with his cell phone, trying to contact Elena. "As I was loading the body into the trunk it stopped moving. I don't know why. _It just stopped_."

Caroline chewed on her lip scanning the night for any further weirdness as she drove. "That's good though right, I mean we wanted it to stop."

Stefan sighed frowning at his cell phone; his calls to Elena's cell had been bouncing straight to voicemail for the last few minutes. "Right now it's not the body in the trunk I'm worried about."

"He won't hurt her, Stefan." Caroline flicked her eyes over to the passenger side, resisting the urge to reach over and pat Stefan's knee. "And Elena was fine when she left that message. She was taking Damon back to the boarding house and he wasn't giving her trouble. Maybe he's calmed down?"

"Where Damon's concerned I'm not making any assumptions," Stefan admitted darkly. "I've learned my lesson; anytime I think I know what Damon's going to do he surprises me – and not in a good way."

"Sure but Damon's in L…" Caroline stopped abruptly before she could say something she probably shouldn't have said. She had seen something caught in the light of her headlights just up ahead. "Hey wait – isn't that Bonnie – and Jeremy?"

Stefan peered out of the windshield as they swept up on the two figures picking their way along the side of the road headed out to the boarding house. "Pull over." Stefan was out of the car almost before Caroline had pulled to a stop on the roadside. Caroline scrabbled to follow suit.

"Bonnie?" She stared at the girl she had known since they were five years old. Bonnie was a mess. She was wearing Jeremy's jacket over tartan drawstring pyjama pants and a white cami top and her hair was mussed and tangled. Caroline, with twelve years of experience, could clearly see that her friend had been crying. She rushed forward to envelop Bonnie in a hug that the smaller girl willingly returned. "What's wrong – what happened?"

"Zombies," it was Jeremy who answered. He looked a bit pale and wide eyed.

"What?" Caroline and Stefan demanded in unison. "No way," Caroline continued stepping away from Bonnie, "You too?" She looked from Bonnie and Jeremy to Stefan and narrowed her eyes. "Is there a walking dead convention in town or something? Seriously, what is up with the Night of the Dead stuff?"

"Caroline," Stefan was using that tone of voice, the one that Caroline had translated to mean: _I'm trying to process the random weirdness of our lives, please stop with the questions until I can figure out an answer._ He turned to Bonnie and Jeremy and looked them up and down. "Are you both okay? Tell me what happened."

Bonnie obviously wasn't fluent in Stefanese because she shook off his concern with an impatient shake of her head. "Where's Damon, Stefan?" She demanded eyes hot and angry. "I need to talk to him right _now_."

* * *

"If it's not a vampire what is it then?" Elena tightened her grip on both the knife in one hand and the stake in the other (the vervain syringes she had shoved into the back pocket of her jeans). Maybe the stake wouldn't have the same impact on a non-vampire but Elena knew for sure that humans and witches didn't do well when impaled with sharp wooden objects either.

Damon just shook his head, his eyes dancing madly around the contours of the room as he looked for…something. Elena wasn't sure what. "It's not as strong here, the blood smell." He glanced at her sharply. "I'd tell you to stay up here but I know you won't listen."

Elena tossed her head, a little indignant. "If you can give me a good reason to stay up here that isn't about me being human and unable to protect myself, then maybe I will. Otherwise, no I won't. I said I'd help you and I'm going to do that; whatever it takes."

Damon didn't even bother to reply, he simply swept back down the attic stair to the second floor, leaving Elena to scramble after him. She didn't view this as a dismissal but instead a victory. Both Damon and Stefan could overdo the protective bit when it came to her safety, but Damon didn't tend to automatically think she needed to be wrapped in cotton wool and mailed to Australia every time something bad happened in Mystic Falls; he usually just expected her not to make dumb mistakes that could potentially get her killed.

"Why is it so cold?" She asked as soon as she hit the second floor landing. The urge to rub her arms was almost overwhelming and only the fact that she had her hands full stopped her from acting on it. Damon had stopped dead halfway down the wide staircase to the ground floor and she could see the skin of his bare back ripple with shivers.

"The smell is stronger now." He told her and Elena had the weird feeling that they were speaking at cross purposes. She wondered if he could feel how cold it was, how the air seemed to cling like a damp blanket all around them, or if perhaps he wasn't aware of it? To Elena the cold air felt wrong in her lungs, heavy and cloying; even the light from the mock chandelier hanging over the stairs seemed somehow dimmed.

There was something very wrong in this house.

"It's…wrong." Damon unintentionally echoed her thoughts. "The blood smells wrong." He shook his head and turned to look up at her and Elena forced back a flinch when she saw that the skin under his eyes was traced with dark veins. "I'm hungry Elena, really, really hungry…but the blood smells bad."

Elena's fingers stroked over the stake in her hand. Damon didn't appear to be violent but she knew she couldn't make assumptions. "How does it smell bad?" She asked carefully. It had occurred to her that Damon might be delirious, his fever spiking and making him think he smelled the blood he must be craving when there was really nothing there. The problem with that theory was that she knew, instinctively, that there _was_ something wrong – something beyond Damon's sickness.

"It's..," he hesitated backtracking up the stairs, "Rotten, diseased…cold." He tried out the words as he spoke them, scenting the air like a wolf. "I can smell…mud." His brows swooped low as he scowled in confusion. "Cold sucking black mud and awamp water; it reeks."

Elena shook her head. "I don't smell anything." She began as he grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her back down the main staircase. "Damon - Damon what are you doing?"

"I know this smell Elena." Damon snapped as he half-dragged her towards the main door of the boarding house. "I remember it."

"Let go – stop it."

Elena tried to wrench her arm free of his grip at the bottom of the stairs, twisting her body. Her foot slipped as she did so, something cold seeping into her sock. She looked down in surprise at the same time Damon did. There was a puddle of something dark and sticky soaking into the area rug in front of the boarding house door. Elena's heart lurched in her chest and she jerked her foot back, "Blood."

Damon nodded mutely his eyes tracking from the floor and up to the hallway wall. Pitter-patter splashes of blood meandered across the hardwood and when Elena dragged her eyes up to the wall she saw a smeared and still dripping hand print perfectly imprinted onto the paintwork at about level with her head.

"There's someone here." She whispered shifting her stance so her back wasn't exposed but instead angled into Damon's body. Her eyes scanned the shadows beyond the parlour doorway as she tightened her grip on the knife and stake.

"Elena," Damon's voice was so tight with tension it was flat as dust, "Try and open the front door."

"What?" Turning back to him Elena couldn't decipher the look on his face. He was holding himself oddly, almost leaning back on his heels towards the stairs. He jerked his head towards the door.

"Can you get out of the door?"

Elena frowned. "Damon I'm not going to leave you –"

"Elena, I can't move," Damon cut her off impatiently. "There's something stopping me from reaching the door." As if to underscore his point he took a step back towards the stairs and only then did his posture relax. He continued to stare fixedly at the closed front door.

Elena looked from Damon to the door in confusion, "Seriously?"

"No Elena," Damon drawled eyes rolling as he glared at her. "I'm screwing with you. This is all an elaborate joke I'm pulling because I have nothing better to do with my time." He jerked his head towards the door again sharp and imperious. "Open the damn door."

Disgruntled Elena surged forward planning to fling open the door and demand some answers. It didn't work out that way. "Oooof," Elena smacked bodily into a solid wall of stinging cold and rebounded onto her backside by the bottom of the stairs. She gasped for air, her lungs seared by the intense cold. Damon reached down to yank her up onto the stairs as Elena continued to goggle at the invisible force between her and the door.

"This is – this is like that spell Bonnie used to trap me in my house that one time." She spun and grabbed Damon by his bare arm to make him look at her when his attention seemed caught upon something upstairs.

"We're trapped," she told him almost shaking him. "We're trapped in this house."

"Mmhmm," There was a strange smile playing over Damon's wane face, "It gets worse."

"Worse?" Elena swallowed staring up at Damon and noting the blood bruising the sclera of his eyes and the veins pulsing dark and hungry over his face, "Worse how? Damon we're trapped in this house. You're sick and haven't fed all day; there's a bloody handprint on the wall. How much worse can it get?"

He smiled with fangs just visible and leaned slowly in to murmur against her hair in a whimsical sing-song voice. "Look up the stairs." He drew away from her slowly, the dangerous half smile still flickering on his face and Elena reluctantly pulled her gaze away from him to look up to the top of the stairs.

Then she started screaming.

* * *

Caroline slammed the brakes on beside Elena's car as the other three passengers piled out. Stefan blurred towards the front door of the boarding house already calling his brother's name. Caroline didn't pretend to fully understand most of what Bonnie had said about beating hearts and weird dreams but she did know that whatever was going on was enough to really scare Stefan.

"Damon? Elena?" Stefan grabbed for the boarding house door and was flung backwards through the air as if he'd been fired by a sling-shot. He rolled end over end across the gravel to land beside Elena's car.

"What the…?" Jeremy went to help Stefan up but the vampire was already on his feet and trying once more to get to the front door of the boarding house. Jeremy looked from the frantic vampire to his girlfriend the witch. "What's going on?"

"It's magic." Bonnie stood beside him, ignoring the discomfort of the gravel biting into her the soles of her bare feet. She followed Stefan with her eyes. "The house is sealed Stefan. You won't get in."

"Wait – you mean like the county road?" Caroline hovered by her car, staring up at the boarding house. It looked normal and there was nothing Caroline hated more than weird, freaky stuff that looked normal until it wasn't. She winced as once again Stefan was bounced back from the house when he tried to get in via a window.

"Damn it Bonnie – break the spell." Stefan wheeled on the witch, desperation twisting his face. "Elena's inside. She's trapped in there with Damon."

Bonnie opened her mouth but was cut off by the muffled but still audible sound of Elena's screams.

"Elena!" Stefan ran back to the house slamming into the wall of power encasing the entirety of the building. Snarling he tried to force his way through, leaning his whole weight against the invisible boundary until his heels started slipping backwards through the loose skein of the gravel driveway. "Elena – Elena can you hear me?" He pounded his fists on the empty air. Bonnie's head jerked up, her whole body tensing.

"Stefan," she screamed, "Get back!"

Her warning came just a split second too late. There was a moment where the night air seemed to freeze over and then a scream of something primal and inhuman tore through the charged atmosphere. It was then that every pane of glass in every window in the boarding house exploded outward descending on the four people trapped outside in a lethal rain of razor sharp projectiles.


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: Hello all and thank you everyone for the tremendous response to the last chapter. I am so incredibly flattered by the amazing response to this story. So in thanks here's some __dark__ Delena for y'all ;)_

_P.S: profanity warning – two uses (I think) of the "F" word. Damon is a very naughty boy._

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* * *

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_Blood Bound_

"Look up the stairs," Damon drew away from Elena slowly, the dangerous half smile still flickering on his face and she reluctantly pulled her gaze away from him to look up to the top of the stairs.

Then she screamed; a sharp, short involuntary sound torn from her throat without conscious thought. She reeled back as a surge of instinctual horror roared through her body and she would have tumbled down the stairs if Damon hadn't caught her by the arm to steady her. Elena could spare him no mind however because all she could do was stare.

Blood - that was the first thing she was aware of before her mind was forced to accept what her eyes were telling her. There was a figure standing at the top of the stairs - a woman – drenched in blood. She was dripping in it, so much so that Elena couldn't tell what she was wearing, or even discern the colour of her skin and hair. All there was to see was blood. Except that wasn't quite right, Elena realised while her brain still tried in vain to scramble the messages received from her eyes. There was some part of her that wanted to deny the reality of what was truly there. Yet Elena couldn't help but piece together the ill-fitting pieces of the puzzle. Something was not right about the outline and contours of the body at the top of the stairs, something not right about the sheer quantity of blood covering the woman. Even the way the light played over that endless rush of blood was wrong, giving the body a translucent quality no human woman would have.

"Oh god," Elena groped blindly for the banister rail as her vision greyed out momentarily.

The figure standing at the top of the stairs wasn't drenched in blood at all. The figure at the top of the stairs was _made _from blood. Like water running through a mould to form the loose, flowing outlines of a lean, thin woman, blood, dark and brackish, swirled in midair to create the swimming illusion of a three dimensional form. Cold seemed to pulse from the apparition along with the earthy scent of loam and stagnant water. In all her worst nightmares, even those that featured Klaus, Elena had never imagined anything like this. She thought she could see the impression of a face - mouth, nose, deep recesses for eyes - all etched out in bloody relief and liquid shadow.

The apparition moved then, and Elena choked back another scream that was as much due to the fury of adrenaline coursing through her veins as it was terror. She was captivated by the thick droplet of blood that fell to the carpeted stair-runner as the – ghost? – pointed one liquid figure straight at Damon. The thing could not speak, yet rage seemed to radiate through the air.

Beside Elena Damon lifted his head, tilted his chin up and smirked. "Hello Amelie. Blood's a good look for you."

"Damon," Elena's hand clenched around the banister, her nails bending back as they bit into the wood. She did not take her eyes from the bloodied ghost standing at the top of the stairs. "Shut up," She ground out between her teeth, her chest tight from the palpitating waves of malevolence she could feel coming from the phantom. "Just shut up."

"Oh Elena you have no sense of adventure," Damon chided her and it was then that the apparition moved again; Elena was both fascinated and sickened by the way the blood flowed and rippled rearranging its form into a new pose like stop-motion photography. Elena shuddered as the ghost began beckoning with blood dripping hand for Damon to climb the stairs towards it.

"Well, well, Miss Amelie, forward aren't we?" Damon actually laughed, a quick bark of sound, and braced one foot onto the next step of the stairs. "Eh, I suppose propriety is a bit redundant when you're dead." He shrugged and smiled wild and reckless, his muscles tensed ready to bound up the stairs towards the thing that could only want to hurt him. The maniacal glitter in his too bright eyes told Elena all she needed to know.

"Damon – stop!"

Elena was already in motion as the semi-solid illusion of the woman's body exploded outward and blood arced through the air, as if launched from a massive water cannon. Everything happened almost too fast to tell after that. She threw herself forward, directly into the path of that jet of blood. She angled her body into Damon, one arm slicing through the air intent on knocking him back down the stairs, or at least further shoving him out of the trajectory of that lancing rush of filthy crimson liquid.

Her hand and forearm grazed against Damon's bare stomach and the contact singed through her mind like lightning. His skin, cool and deceptively soft, was merely a thin covering over taut, wiry muscle. Bouncing off the wall, her head and shoulder smacking against the plaster hard enough that her teeth clicked, Elena allowed herself to fall into him, crashing against his body like the proverbial irresistible force meeting the immovable object. She threw her arms out wide, to envelope his head and shoulders, trying to cover as much space as she could with every inch of her body. Her nails dug into the strong muscle stretching between his shoulder joints and his neck, bearing down on him with all her weight as she locked her legs around his waist.

The blood smashed into Elena's back with all the force of a baseball bat, and she screamed once more, her body wrapped monkey like around Damon, protecting him from the deluge. She squeezed closed her eyes as the blood burned through her back, her neck, her shoulders, and down her buttocks and thighs stinging like battery acid. The pain was so intense she couldn't breathe.

"Elena!"

Behind her bared and clenched teeth and her squeezed shut eyes Elena saw searing white light. She pressed her forward to Damon's and clung on to him with all her might as she tumbled into blinding white oblivion.

* * *

"Elena!"

Caroline lifted her head from the ground and then scrambled to her feet when she saw Stefan struggling to rise, bleeding profusely onto the gravel driveway and calling his girlfriend's name. She dashed forward, feet crunching over gravel and glass shards to his side. He was already sitting up, his face a mask of blood as he pulled three inch wide glass spears from his chest, neck and arms. Caroline ready to help him as Stefan rose shakily to his feet. His eyes were rooted to the boarding house. Caroline shivered as she looked at the building, every window was a wide open black hole, all the lights were off, and the torn and tattered remnants of the thick parlour drapes fluttered tauntingly through the jagged empty frames of the windows. There was absolutely no sign of life from inside.

"…No…no…please," Stefan staggered forward, stumbling and looking down in confused annoyance when his leg buckled. Caroline grabbed him, holding him up as Stefan growled and wrenched a five inch long wedge of window glass from the meat of his inner thigh. Dark blood had already soaked his jeans and his light blue sweater was ripped to scraggly ribbons that sparkled dully with the reflected light of the moon catching on the tiny fragments of glass embedded into the fabric. He took another step towards the boarding house and Caroline moved swiftly to throw his arm around her shoulders. She knew she couldn't stop Stefan from trying once again to reach Elena so she might as well support him all she could.

It was Bonnie who stopped them. "Stefan wait." Bonnie and Jeremy had dived underneath Elena's car when the windows had exploded and managed to avoid being sliced into pastrami but now Jeremy was sweeping away the loose glitter of glass littering the hood of Elena's car so Bonnie could sit on it while Bonnie closed her eyes and raised her hands outward. Caroline recognised the meditative pose as Bonnie's standard spell casting stance.

"Bonnie?" Stefan's voice was harsh with pain and anxiety and Caroline could feel each minute shudder of his breath as his body went through the painful process of ejecting every slither of glass from his skin.

"…Wait," Bonnie insisted brow twitching sharply. "I'm trying to sense for any living presence in the house, but the barrier spell is blocking me…I think…" Bonnie's expression relaxed suddenly and her shoulders sagged a little in evident relief. "Elena…she's alive. I can feel her in there." Bonnie opened her eyes and dropped her hands, clear eyes meeting Stefan's. "Elena's alive, Stefan. She's alive."

Stefan shuddered, slumping a little so that Caroline had to take more of his weight. "We have to get her out Bonnie." He said his voice weak both from relief and worry. "We have to get them _both_ out." Pulling away from Caroline Stefan turned to stare back at the house, face twisting. "I threw out all the blood." He shook his head. "Damn it, I thought…I didn't _know_…I thought I was doing the right thing." He turned to Caroline anguish blazing in his eyes. "Damon hasn't fed in over twenty-four hours and there's no blood in the freezers. The only source of blood is…"

"Elena." Caroline felt her heart contract painfully. Her gaze swung back to the house. "He wouldn't…I mean he's old…he can control…" the words trailed off as she once again met Stefan's eyes, seeing the depth of sick fear lurking within. "Oh god," She whispered.

Caroline knew what it felt like to be desperate for blood. She struggled with the desire every day and that was when she was well fed and both Salvatore brothers made sure she had enough bagged blood to take the edge off. The older a vampire was the better they were at handling the urge for fresh blood (except for Stefan and he had a whole different set of hang-ups). Yet starvation was starvation no matter what, and Damon had been even more unstable in the last twenty four hours than his usual just-one-drink-away-from-a-complete-emotional-break-down-self.

"Damon's control of his bloodlust is good," Stefan was pacing, ignoring the teeth grating grind of broken glass and loose stone under his feet. "It's always been good, even when we first turned…he's never been a slave to it the way I was…but he's not in control of _himself_ right now." Gripping his head in his hands Stefan clawed his fingers threw his hair. "He might not even remember who Elena is! He could drain her before he knows what he's doing."

Stefan blurred towards Bonnie still perched on the hood of Elena's car. He reached out as if to grasp her shoulders and just barely stopped himself when she tensed defensively. Caroline knew things were bad when even Stefan's legendary control was fraying at the edges with every passing second. "Bonnie there has to be some way of breaking the barrier. Please. If Damon kills Elena…" Stefan swallowed dryly unable to finish his own sentence.

Panic drummed inside Stefan's skull, threatening his own self-control. His mind was in turmoil. His skin was crawling with the desire to get to Elena, to make sure she was safe, to wrap her in his arms and get her as far from potential harm as he could. If Damon killed her, even accidentally, Stefan knew he would kill his brother. If Damon hurt Elena it would be the last straw, the one thing Stefan could not forgive. If Elena died, Damon would die.

Stefan would kill him...he'd kill his own brother.

Mutely Stefan stepped back from the car his arms dropping limply to his sides. He was distantly aware that Bonnie, Jeremy, and Caroline were all talking to him, yet he couldn't hear them, couldn't discern what platitudes or reassurances they were trying to give him. All he could hear was the static thunder in his brain and the hollow racing of his heart. He tasted bile at the back of his throat and it hurt to breathe. He was terrified. He was terrified that Elena was in danger and he was only yards away but could not reach her. He was terrified of his own helplessness. He was petrified of losing Elena…and he was scared, so damn scared, of losing Damon right along with her.

* * *

Elena came back to awareness in a disjointed muddle. She heard the sound of running water and the discordant lilt of someone whistling tunelessly and she could feel what felt like brisk hands yanking down her jeans. Her eyes flew open in alarm, her heart rammed against the roof of her mouth. Reflexively her hands moved to grab for her jeans as they were dragged down past her upper thigh.

"...Wha...?" The first thing she saw was the discrete lighting of Damon's bathroom suite, the sleek tiling and the glass siding of his standing shower. Underneath her back she felt the soft fluffy friction of a thick bath towel. The air was muggy with steam rising from the steadily filling tub. She blinked fuzzily. What was she doing lying on the floor of Damon's bathroom? Speaking of the devil, the face of the vampire in question suddenly loomed in front of her, obliterating her view of the rest of the room. She didn't like the bright gleam in his oddly flat blue eyes. "Damon?"

"Finally," He scoffed, rolling his eyes as his hands darted forward to give her jeans another harsh wrench. "I was getting bored of the corpse impersonation. Speaking with authority, dead is not a look many people do well." Elena gasped as his knuckles scraped over the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs and she surged forward, grabbing his hands and prying them off her jeans.

"What the hell are you doing?" Her heart was tripping in her chest, equal parts rage and utter confusion. She propped herself up on her elbows and scrambled to pull her jeans back up her legs.

"Trying to get you out of your pants; what does it look like I was doing?" Damon reached for her again and Elena immediately slapped his hands away. She stared at him in speechless outrage. Even at his worst he had never tried anything like this on her before. Damon scowled, as if she was the one acting crazy. "On second thought," he grumbled, "it was easier to strip you when you weren't moving."

Elena recoiled, kicking back with her feet so she could scoot away from him. Elena knew there was an incredibly ugly side to Damon's nature, something so warped and twisted she really didn't like to think about it, but over the months she'd known him, especially since he'd started clawing his way back to some semblance of humanity, Elena had started to believe that the worst of his character was more a symptom of a disease he was recovering from than a genuine part of his personality. This though, this was just beyond anything she could forgive. She couldn't even find the words as she stared at him, face contorted into fear spiked disgust.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Damon snarled his own eyes blazing. "You're covered in evil-witch blood, Elena! I was trying to get you into the damn tub to wash it off."

Elena blinked and jerked her head to look down at her jeans, covered in disgusting, stinking dark stains. She glanced to the puddle of cloth lying a few feet away that had once been her shirt; it too was almost black with blood. Raising her arms, Elena noticed the pale pinkish blotches all over her skin, particularly her shoulders, where the blood had seeped through the material of her clothes and brought her skin up in rashes and sores.

"I..," Elena looked up at Damon who had stood to check the temperature of the water in the tub and turn off the faucet. He was half turned away from her, but she could see enough of his profile to know his jaw was pulsing with suppressed anger. "I'm sorry." She told him quietly beginning to wriggle out of her jeans now she was awake enough to feel the corrosive bite of the blood against her legs.

Getting out of these clothes sounded like a very good idea now that she thought about it. Still standing around in nothing but her underwear while occupy the same space as Damon did not. Elena did her best to – avoid - acknowledging Damon's feelings for her but all the same, she, like just about everyone else, knew they were there and standing around half naked in front of him just seemed really tacky to Elena. Self-consciously she wrapped the big towel Damon had placed on the floor around herself. He noticed her less than subtle attempt to cover herself and smirked, the barest twitch of his lips.

"What happened?" She asked wanting to move past the awkwardness as quickly as possible. She looked around sharply. "Where is..." She trailed off not even sure what to call that thing that had attacked them. Somehow 'ghost' did not do that horror justice.

"No idea," Damon he told carelessly shaking the water from his hand as he straightened up from the tub. "After you decided to throw yourself on me and get splattered in dead-witch goo, everything went ka-boom." He said in that same too light and breezy voice he had been using since they'd discovered they were trapped in the house. Elena watched him and noticed that he didn't entirely meet her eyes throughout his explanation. "You screamed and passed out, our resident poltergeist decided to break some windows, the power went out, and then there was this almighty screaming – not you this time – and I must have passed out from perforated eardrums because when I woke ghostie-girl was gone." He shrugged. "Anti-climax really; I was expecting more of a show from darling Amelie."

"That can't be it. That thing can't be gone, can it?" Elena frowned moving cautiously towards his huge tub when Damon stepped back to allow her room. She looked up at him. "Are we still trapped in the house?"

"Yep," he answered, "Can't even get out of the windows." Damon was still wearing that odd half smirk on his face, as if at any moment he might burst out laughing. Considering the situation they were in that alone told Elena that there was something not right with him.

"Damon?" Her voice held a hint of warning as well as question. Elena had always been weirdly attuned to his moods, able to sense what was genuine and what was his usual nonchalant act, and now her own nerves were jangling, ringing faint warning bells in her head when it came to the vampire before her. "Damon - look at me."

They were both leaning against the rim of the tub and Elena shuffled an inch closer to him, her fingers itching to clasp his face and turn it towards her, so she could look into his eyes. As if sensing her intention he pushed away from the tub, stepping out of her reach.

"Oh don't worry, I had a good look before you woke up," He told her with that odd laughter still hidden in his voice. He leered at her over his shoulder. "White cotton bra and panties, no lace, no trim – cute Elena; very chaste." He did the eye thing and made air quotes with his fingers, "Very vestal virgin."

"Excuse me?" Elena blinked, heat rushing to her cheeks as her temper flared.

Damon turned back around to face her, mouth curving into a sneer and eyes heavy lidded. Elena tensed up instantly. "What a lying little tease, you are." He purred and let his eyes track slowly over her bare feet, her legs, and up to her towel swathed body. He didn't bother looking all the way up to her eyes. "Covering up your assets like a Catholic schoolgirl, and still you play your little mind games."

"Damon, stop it," She snapped. She didn't like where this was going. She didn't like the thick undercurrent of threat in his voice, the hint of anger. It reminded her of the night she found him in her room drunk and half-crazed – the night he had snapped Jeremy's neck. "You need to get out and let me take a bath alone." She continued when his eyes finally rose to her face. The complete lack of expression save that twisted little smirk made her stomach plummet to her knees. "I'm serious Damon, get out now. Go lie down. Try and sleep. You're not thinking straight and I don't want to fight with you."

Damon cocked his head to the side and smiled. It was as waxy and false as a mannequin. His eyes were all but opaque, blue tinted glass reflecting light, yet shallow and broken. "I don't want to lie down." He told her rolling the words like a petulant child. "In fact I don't think you should be telling me what to do. _I don't like it_." His eyes fixed on her and Elena knew she was staring into the eyes of a hungry beast. Damon – _her friend Damon_ – was nowhere in sight. Despite the roiling in her stomach Elena refused to allow her disquiet to show. She faced him down, head tilted back, chin up, eyes flashing courage and challenge without even knowing it.

"But you'll do it anyway." She told him with complete confidence. "You're going to leave this room – leave me– and wait outside. You're going to do this even if you don't want to," she pressed hard, "Because you want to upset me even less."

Damon moved and before Elena could blink he was pressing against her. Elena was crushed against the tub, her upper body unbalanced, as she instinctively leaned back from him and almost fell in. Damon's arm swooped around her back, holding her up and also pulling her flush against him. Elena immediately tried to shove him away, lifting a knee to kick him, but the angle was wrong, and truthfully Elena could only really hurt Damon if he let her. Her hands ended up plastered against his bare chest as Damon's free hand came up to push back her sticky, tangled hair from her face. He leaned in, lips grazing her cheek as he nuzzled down her jaw to her neck.

"I _want _to eat you," he murmured, soft as a lover into her ear, while his fingers pitter-pattered down her neck and every line of his body joined with hers. "You have no idea how fucking tempting it was – you just lying in my arms, _marinated _in blood." He snarled the words and she felt his lips twist into a feral sneer against her throat, completely at odds with the sweet tickle of his fingers over her shuddering throat. "I could have had you, bit you, ripped you open and wallowed in your hot, pumping blood before you ever knew what happened," he continued and she flinched when his blunt human teeth nipped at her flesh briefly before his lips trailed up the column of her throat to the ticklish patch of skin behind her ear.

Somehow Elena found her senses again, found the strength not to panic and remain strong; her voice didn't shake as she demanded: "Why didn't you?"

Damon lifted his head, eyes hard, face pinched tight with anguish. The anguish of a hungry tiger denied his meal. "You are so damn lucky I can still remember what it feels like to love you," he told her bitterly releasing her so swiftly Elena had to grab the towel rail on the wall to stop from falling backwards into the tub.

When Elena looked up again Damon was gone. She shivered and sucked in a shaky breath, before touching fingers to her neck, whole and untouched, but still tingling with the sensory memory of his lips. She stared out the open doorway of the bathroom suite to the bedroom she could see beyond sightlessly. His words echoed over and over in her ears. _...What it feels like to love you..._

"Oh god," she whispered her fingers still tracing the place on her neck where he had bit down, the skin alive with the memory. "I don't know what to do."


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N: Okay so this chapter is shameless self-indulgence on my part. I re-watched episode 1:6 – 'lost girls' of TVD...Gah, I looooooove that dance scene. THAT is the Damon I am stupidly obsessed with. Why can't every episode of the show involve Damon dancing? Ahem, anyway. This chapter does contain some important clues as to the plot, but for the most part I just had too much fun writing Crazy!Damon. I promise next chapter will return to the __actual__ storyline ;)_

* * *

_Switch on, switch off...flip out_

Damon Salvatore flew down the stairs like a one-man tornado, fingers blurring as he roughly buttoned a shirt half way before giving up because, really, why did he care if he was half dressed or not? He was pissed off. He was frustrated. He was _hungry_. To summarise he was just generally _not_ in a good mood. What the hell difference did a shirt make in these circumstances? None; zilch; zip. Yet he'd put one on out of deference to the delicate sensibilities of the fair maiden slopping about in his bath tub. What the hell was that about? Why in hell wasn't he up there right _now_ draining said uptight little madam dry?

"Whipped," He sneered, disgusted with himself. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and glared at the front door he couldn't breach before his eyes fell on the starburst splatter of blood on the rug. His jaw clenched, tension zinging through his aching gums.

Damon still didn't know how he felt about everything that had happened since Amelie appeared. On the one hand, Elena had gone all action hero on him, throwing herself in harm's way as if she actually gave a damn, and for some reason he didn't want to examine the idea that she might care meant something to him. On the other hand, blood! She'd gotten in the way of the first meal he'd had in too long. Yes, the blood would have essentially ensured he'd become Amelie's thrall for real, but frankly if his choice was to be a well fed puppet or shrivel up in slow starvation...well, he knew which he'd pick.

Bits of glass and general debris crunched under his feet as he strode into the parlour and made a bee-line for the liquor cabinet. He was relieved to see that while some of his bottles had become casualties of Amelie's earlier snit, the good stuff, the stuff he hid inside the cabinet, was still intact. He snatched up a bottle of scotch, ripped open the seal, dispensed with the cap, and upended the bottle into his waiting mouth. It wouldn't quench his thirst, probably wouldn't even soothe his frayed nerves, but after a hundred and fifty years of (not so) casual alcohol abuse Damon was of the firm belief that everything was better faced when drunk off his ass.

"Hmm," Standing in the middle of his trashed living room a slow smile tickled over his lips. His jaw was on fire, his throat tight with thirst and there was still a persistent dull ache behind his eyes. He was tired of this. It was time to take this haunting to the next level. He cocked his head listening.

"Yooohooo," he called softly swinging the liquor bottle in his hand as his feet began to shuffle in a half dance step, "Here ghostie, here witchy-witch...wanna come out and play?"

He paused again, listening out for any hint that his spectral home invader was close by. All he could hear was Elena upstairs. She was still in his tub and for a moment he allowed himself to imagine her body all slick and nude, the water turning her hair black as night, droplets of water dancing down her sleek long legs as she raised first one and then the other out of the water teasingly. He imagined how she might smile just a little as she dipped below the surface, taking pleasure in the warmth of the water, and the easing tension in her muscles. He thought about how the water would embrace her, seeping everywhere, moulding and encasing every contour of her body, invading every crevice...every orifice...

"Well damn," Damon growled, shaking his head to scatter all such thoughts. He was already hungry. He didn't need to add horny to his ever-growing list of complaints. Glancing up through the ceiling his grin turned feral. He had an idea. Now all he needed was something sharp and lethal to help him implement his newest diabolical plan. This was going to be soooo much fun.

* * *

Alaric knew the shit had really hit the fan as soon as he pulled his car up the Salvatore driveway and saw Stefan, Caroline, Bonnie, and Jeremy all standing around Elena's car. The wrecked and darkened facade of the boarding house itself and the quilt of broken glass all over the gravel merely added contextual detail to the scene.

"...Can't get through on her cell. It's not connecting." Jeremy was saying as Alaric approached. "Can magic really disrupt a cell signal?" He glanced around then. "Ric, hey what are you doing here?"

"What the hell happened?" Alaric asked more tiredly appalled than disturbed. He eyed Stefan's blood stained, somewhat wild looking self sceptically. He took note of the two people missing from this impromptu gathering. "Where are Damon and Elena?"

"Alaric what are you doing here?" Stefan repeated Jeremy's question and he really did look bad. Ignoring the blood and the torn clothes there was a panicked sheen in his eyes that immediately alarmed Alaric. Damon might be insane but he was at least consistently unhinged, whereas Stefan was so deceptively normal most of the time that when he did start to look shaky it always had a far greater impact on Alaric than Damon's general mad, bad, and dangerous to know mien.

"I have news," Alaric said simply. "But it looks like you might have more." He jerked his chin towards the boarding house and then looked over at Bonnie dressed in what looked like her PJ's sitting on Elena's car. "What's going on?"

"Man, you just had to ask," Jeremy laughed hollowly. "Elena's trapped in the boarding house with Damon. Damon hasn't fed in over a day and there's no blood in the house. Plus, we have zombies." He glanced over at Bonnie, sharing some odd complicit look with his girlfriend.

"Zombies?" Alaric blinked. "Okay. That's new." He shook his head and moved forward, stepping around Stefan towards the three people who seemed at least a little more stable than the younger Salvatore at the moment. Still he supposed he couldn't blame Stefan for looking ragged. It sounded like the situation was even worse than he'd thought.

"I was with Sheriff Forbes," Alaric began, figuring he might as well tell them what he knew. "Apparently Damon called her earlier tonight. He told her there was a bad witch on the loose in Mystic Falls. He said the witch had – _compromised _- him, which I'm going to assume means she whammied him somehow. Sheriff Forbes was called to a car accident out on the county road," Alaric noticed Caroline's eyes go wide when he said that last part, but decided he didn't want to ask and so ignored the look for now. "She gave me some info on the stuff Damon was investigating before he went off the deep end," watching the four (mostly) young people curiously Alaric shrugged, "it could be useful."

"Damon said a witch was in Mystic Falls?" Bonnie fixed Alaric with her intense eyes. "Did he know the name of the witch?"

Alaric shook his head. "All I know is what the Sheriff told me. Damon was cagey with her." He glanced back at Stefan who had stepped closer but still seemed to be maintaining his distance and his silence. "Damon went to investigate a suspicious murder scene in Maudeville last night. A kid had his heart cut out of his body in what looks like a weird ritualistic murder." Alaric watched as this detail had an immediate impact on the other four. They all exchanged furious looks in silent communication, which left Alaric feeling somewhat out of the loop. Evidently a lot had been happening while he'd been talking with the sheriff. Oh well; just another day in good ol' Mystic Falls where the crazy just kept on coming.

"Damon said when he reached the site he found a witch, and I'm guessing, had his ass handed to him and his brain screwed." Alaric continued pointedly. It never ceased to amaze him how reckless Damon could be with his own personal safety. That the man had survived for near on a hundred and seventy years was pretty remarkable considering his knack for finding trouble.

"Whatever happened to him it was bad enough that Damon told the Sheriff about _me_." Alaric frowned. He was still kind of pissed about that, but was prepared to at least give the vampire the benefit of the doubt. "Damon was pretty adamant the threat was real, and that he wouldn't be able to do anything to help this time." Alaric smirked humourlessly. "Under the circumstances it looks like he called that one right."

"Why didn't he say anything?" Stefan demanded abruptly, still holding himself so carefully under control it was obvious just how little self-control he had left in him. "If he'd just said something we could have avoided all this." He threw out a hand to gesture towards the house, voice sharp and on edge. "Elena wouldn't be in danger. Damon might not be trapped without blood." Stefan scoured his hands through his hair, causing it to stick up every which way. "Damn it. Why didn't he trust us...why didn't he trust _me_?"

There was an awkward moment of silence then. Alaric found himself suddenly very interested in a piece of glass on the ground that looked a little like the state of Texas. Jeremy played with his phone, Caroline and Bonnie glanced at each other awkwardly. It seemed like no one wanted to touch the big issue of the Salvatore brothers incredibly messed up filial relationship tonight. Alaric wasn't sure he _ever_ wanted to go near that one. Elena, in Alaric's opinion, had to be either immensely brave or masochistic to put herself right in the middle of it.

"Well," Caroline rallied first just as the silence was becoming oppressive. "Damon was kinda crazy last time we saw him. Maybe if he'd been, y'know, _sane_ he would have mentioned that a big bad witch was after him?" She glanced at Bonnie as an idea suddenly came to her. "Oooh I know, maybe the witch tried to make Damon into a vampire zombie and that's why he's even more whacko than usual?" Caroline looked around at the others for their view on her theory. All she received was a lot of blank looks. Annoyed she turned back to her friend.

"It could happen, right Bonnie?" She frowned when the other girl didn't answer. "Um... hello, Bonnie? I'm talking here."

"Shh," Bonnie snapped her eyes trained on the boarding house. "Listen. There's something going on in there."

* * *

Elena jerked upright in the tub when she heard the crashing rumble of bass chords followed by a horrendous cracking sound. She scrambled out of the tub and fumbled for a towel as the whole house reverberated with the angry chaos of some sort of rock anthem Elena had never heard before.

What the hell was happening now? Were they being invaded by the ghosts of a thrash metal band? Elena darted into Damon's room and started pulling open drawers in his bureau until she found a charcoal grey shirt that hit her mid-thigh. She yanked it on over her underwear and cinched it tight around her waist with a leather belt she found coiled in a drawer with Damon's boxers and briefs. For good measure she threw on the black terry cloth robe she found hanging from a hook on the inside of his door. She looked ridiculous with her hair tangled and dripping down her back, but at least she was mostly covered.

"Damon?" She shouted his name over the anonymous howling of the music as she hit the stairs, freezing for a moment when she saw the state of the ground floor. Looking around at the deep gouges in the plaster, the glass embedded in the door frames, the fallen chandelier in pieces on the floor of the entranceway and the mess of blood stains and glass covering the floor, Elena sucked in a sharp breath. Damon hadn't said anything about this. What had caused all this damage? Damon had some serious explaining to do. If he'd lied to her she was going to be really annoyed.

Running back to Damon's room to pull her sneakers on Elena then flew down the stairs headed towards the heavy thunk, thunk noise she could hear coming from the library. She hit the library mezzanine at a dead run, coming to a screeching halt at the split level railing when she saw the vampire.

"Damon – what the _hell_?" Elena spluttered staring.

Damon had a hand axe – _he had an axe!_ – and he was chopping holes in the walls. Elena could barely believe it. This was _insane_. Damon was chopping holes into the walls, the bookcases, and random pieces of furniture within reach with a gleeful abandon she'd only seen before in slasher movies.

"Helllllooooo Elena," twirling around with the grace of a maniacal ballerina Damon slammed the axe into – and through – the heavy wood table sitting in the centre of the room, splitting it in half.

He grinned beatifically as he wrenched the axe back out, threw it aside where it clunked into the wall, and grabbed up one half of the broken table. He tore off the two remaining legs and, before Elena could think to react, threw the two foot wide, three inch thick segment of table into the wall with the full force of his vampire strength. Plaster exploded outward, the wall sprouted deep jagged cracks and wood splintered into jagged pieces of shrapnel which bounced across the room causing further damage. When the dust cleared Elena saw a foot wide hole in the library wall that exposed bare brickwork. Damon had come close to smashing a hole right through the wall to the open air.

"Bullseye," the vampire crowed retrieving a nearly empty bottle of scotch from the floor and drinking it down like a fish.

"Damon!"

Elena flew down the handful of steps from the mezzanine to the main floor of the library so fast she barely realised what she was doing until she was right in front of him. "What is wrong with you?" She demanded grabbing hold of his cobalt blue shirt and yanking on the silk until he turned towards her. "Have you completely lost your mind?" She tried to wrest the booze from him but he held it up out of her reach above his head.

"Nuh-uh – mine." He grinned at her sloppily dancing back a few steps from her like this was some sort of game. Elena tried again to grab at him but he swerved gracefully just out of reach, blurred across the room to yank the axe from the wall again, and looked around speculatively for the next breakable he could destroy. Elena could only gape at him.

"You're drunk?" For a moment Elena almost didn't believe it. Then she felt anger rise up in her. "_Seriously_? We're trapped in here, there's a dead witch after you, and you thought now would be a good time to get wasted?"

"Ah-uh," Damon pouted, wagging a finger at her, "don't judge. It's better I'm drinking _this_," he sloshed the last fifth of scotch in the bottle, "then you."

Elena knew that Damon had some problems with impulse control – god did he – but she'd always been able to count on him in a crisis. He was sort of everyone's go to guy when the really bad stuff happened because he was so good at handling it. Now as she chased after him while he danced down the hallway to the parlour swinging his axe like an oversized (demented) member of the Seven Dwarves Elena wondered if Amelie had done something to him while she was unconscious. Was he possessed? Elena couldn't think of anything else that would explain any of this.

"Damon – god - would you be serious for once?" Elena burst into the parlour on his heels, but rocked to a stop when she saw the state of the room.

The parlour looked as if Damon had already attacked it with his axe. The once beautiful, almost baroque, room was in shambles. Chairs had been hacked to bits, stuffing and scraps of leather littering the hard wood. Antique cavalry swords had been used to rip holes in the walls and even the stone fireplace was sporting gouges where Damon must have struck it with the axe.

"Why are you doing this?" Elena asked him, fear and exasperation warring for pride of place in her mind. Her thoughts were reeling. Half an hour ago Damon had been silkily menacing, frighteningly intense, but still seemingly rational. Now he was like this. Elena felt like screaming. Tears pricked at her eyelids. It was only now, stuck in a situation becoming increasingly more bizarre, cut off from Stefan and the rest of her friends, that Elena realised how much trouble she was in. She'd thought that she and Damon were in this together but now...now she was beginning to doubt that she could count on Damon at all.

She flinched when he swung the axe at the wall near the wide, broken windows, spitting splinters into the air as he hacked a deep hole into the wood panelling. "Stop it." She rushed forward grabbing for the axe as he swung his arm again. "God damn it Damon. Stop it!"

She clung on to the axe, trying to pry his fingers from the handle. He could jerk it away from her easily. He could send her flying across the room if he wanted, but instead he just sighed. "Elena." He rolled her name, drawling it lazily in that way he had that was uniquely his. She looked up at him, hopeful despite herself that she'd find something remotely sane in his blank blue eyes. "We're trapped in this house." Was all he said as if this fact had somehow escaped her notice.

"I know that." She snapped grabbing the axe away from him and holding it behind her back like that would in any way stop him from taking it from her. He looked amused, his eyes still glassy, his reactions so obviously off. "That doesn't explain why you're trying to destroy your own home." She insisted, desperate to get some kind of sense out of him.

"If there's no house, there's no trap." Damon trilled serenely, sidestepping around her and sashaying over to the still intact drinks cabinet. His feet moved like he was waltzing with thin air, literally dancing to the beat of his own, deranged, drummer.

"Amelie's magic has to have a focus, something to ground it." He continued almost managing to sound like a rational person. "I can hear something in the walls of the house." He poured himself a drink. "I'm trying to dig her out. If her spirit has no physical anchor she loses her power. I'm not sure _how_ Amelie managed to tether herself to this house. I mean I killed her at the turn of the last century in _Mississippi_, but whatever." He paused, smiled for no particular reason, and cocked his head to the side regarding her intently, yet dispassionately. "Plus I'm pissed off and bored; a little property damage takes the edge off."

"You've lost it," Elena shook her head taking an involuntary step back towards the door. "What little sanity you had left..._you've completely lost it_." For just a moment Elena contemplated flinging the axe right at his head, but swallowed the fleeting homicidal desire. She closed her eyes, struggling for calm. Why? Why was he cracking up now? She _needed him_ to keep it together. He was the only one who knew what the hell was going on. What right did he have to flip out now?

"Damon this is not a good plan. This is the _antithesis_ of a good plan. You can't destroy the house." She tried to keep her voice level, even though what she wanted to do was scream even louder than his damn music. "Do you even know for sure that Amelie needs the house for the spell? What if you wreck the house and we're still trapped?" She threw the axe down onto the remains of the couch in frustration.

Damon was suddenly right in front of her, casually invading her personal space in a way he hadn't for months. His hands cupped her face, tilting her head up. He smiled, blank and empty. "Elena - I don't care." He told her almost gently. "This is my house and I'll wreck it if I want to." He lowered his face to hers, the reek of scotch heavy on his breath. "Your opinion doesn't matter to me. I don't know why you think it would." He dropped a mocking kiss onto her forehead, his palms holding her head immobile, the strength in those hands an implicit threat. "Now be a good girl and get the hell out of my way. I'm not my brother. Whining doesn't do it for me." He pushed her back, still gentle, but the callousness was unmistakable.

"Though, gotta say, you in my shirt and robe, that does appeal to my inner alpha male." He winked at her before affecting a look of false concern. "Whatever would Stefan say?" He asked, fey and uncaring. Tossing his head he blew her a kiss and twisted on his heels, snatching up the axe from the couch as he left.

Speechless Elena watched him saunter out of the room. It was then that all the jumbled, mismatched pieces of the puzzle came together in her mind and she finally realised what was wrong with him. Damon was behaving just like he had when she first met him, oscillating wildly between cold menace and manic recklessness.

"The switch," she whispered feeling cold all over.

Somehow, someway, Damon had flipped the vampire emotion switch. The mechanism all vampires had to protect themselves from their amplified emotions; the switch which had the side-effect of turning vampires into self-serving sociopaths. Elena felt tears spill down her cheeks even as a fine, white hot rage spiked inside her. He'd lost it all right, but not his sanity. Instead Damon had lost his humanity.

"Like hell," Elena growled, low in her throat. There was no way, _no freaking way_, she was going to let this happen. She'd promised him that she wouldn't let anything take his humanity away from him again. He'd come too far and he was so close. Elena knew that there was a truly beautiful, wonderful person just waiting to come to life inside Damon. A person she was longing to see.

Narrowing her eyes Elena looked around the empty parlour, trying to hear something in the walls like Damon claimed to have done. "You can't have him." She told the thing lurking in the silence she could feel all around her. Pulses of pyrotechnic fury made her teeth ache as her fists rhythmically clenched and unclenched. Elena was barely aware of what she was saying, except for the fact that she meant every word to the very marrow of her heart and soul. "You can't have him." She repeated her voice so low and guttural it was barely recognisable as her own. "He's _mine_."

This was war and Elena was playing for keeps.


	17. Chapter 17

_Vicious circle _

Elena crept along the second floor hallway towards Damon's bedroom. She had paced throughout the rest of the boarding house (and finally managed to shut off that god awful music) but found no trace of either Damon or Amelie, so by process of elimination the vampire at the very least had to be in his room. Poking her head around the half ajar door Elena choked back a sigh of relief when she immediately spotted the vampire laying sprawled across his bed asleep.

She tiptoed inside and gently closed the door behind her. Elena had retrieved the stake, dagger, and vervain syringes she had been carrying earlier from the entranceway hallway (where she must have dropped them after passing out from Amelie's attack). Now she wore the stake and knife threaded through the knotted sash of her borrowed bathrobe. The syringes she had secreted into the voluminous pockets. Re-armed Elena felt at least a little more confident about bearding the hungry vampire in his den. The fact that he didn't even stir when she entered his room also helped her confidence. She believed Damon wouldn't hurt her, even now cut off from his feelings, but she wasn't going to take any stupid chances either.

She and Damon had come to their special understanding when Damon was still refusing to acknowledge his feelings –or even that he was _capable_ of feeling at all. They had embarked on a tentative friendship when he was still behaving abominably. If she had found the decency in him back then she could do it again. Yet she couldn't even begin to break through to Damon while Amelie's ghost was around. Elena had no doubt in her mind that Amelie was behind Damon's regression. If she wanted to get Damon back she would have to take out the ghost first. This was easier said than done, but Elena had a plan. Kind of.

Sliding into the big comfortable armchair Damon kept near his orgy-sized bed Elena studied him as he slept. He looked…cute. It was a crazy thing to think but it was true. Damon was sleeping on his stomach, face turned towards her, dark messy hair falling into his eyes and mouth soft, almost pouting, in his slumber. He had one hand, palm flat against the mattress, close to his face and his chest rose and fell in hitching breaths. There was still a faint fever blush across his cheeks and she thought she could see the very slight hint of dark capillaries through the thin skin under his closed eyes.

"What am I going to do with you?" Elena breathed out softly and brought her legs up to her chest, curled her arms around her knees and propped up her chin. She kept her eyes trained on the vampire.

Over the last half year Elena had filled pages and pages of her diary with various diatribes on the problem of Damon Salvatore in her life. Some were tear streaked and full of rage and fear and sickening betrayal, so painful she found it difficult to re-read them. Others were less emotive as she tried to figure out why she cared at all. Still no matter how many words spilled from her mind onto paper she never did come up with any satisfactory answers. In the end she had been forced to buy a separate notebook, rip out all her Damon-only diary entries and compile them altogether in the unmarked book that had become something of a life story of the complicated give and take that was her bizarre relationship with her boyfriend's older brother.

(If nothing else Elena figured she could always change the names and publish the whole thing under a pseudonym – she'd make millions on the romance market; talk about star cross'd).

Shaking her head to clear it, and smiling despite herself, Elena reached out to stroke her fingers through the hair tufting behind Damon's ear. She scraped her finger's gently down to the nape of his neck. Damon twitched, murmured something through barely moving lips but did not wake. Elena took a deep breath and steeled herself, fingers hooking around the loose collar of his shirt, tugging it down to reveal more of his skin.

"I'm sorry Damon," she whispered meaning it as she pulled out one of the vervain syringes and jammed the needle down into the soft skin of his neck. "But this is for the best." She thumbed down the plunger and watched the lance of pain and discomfort mar his sleeping face as the vervain spread through his blood stream. Damon moaned, pained and helpless, but did not wake.

Elena grabbed Damon's hand and yanked off his sunlight ring. She fled the bedroom without a backward glance.

* * *

September 21st 1900: pain ignited behind the vampire's eyes and he staggered to his knees in the fetid swamp water clutching his head. This pain was unbelievable; bright pulses of colour erupted behind his eyelids and he tasted blood at the back of his throat. He had no idea what Amelie had done to him but it felt like his brain was on fire. It was almost a relief when his body was picked up by a wave of force and flung several feet across the swamp into the gnarled roots of a black barked tree.

"Vampire!" Calloused hands grabbed at his body helping him sit up. The vampire growled, still dazed, and blinked his eyes into focus before shoving Ambrose away from him.

"Blast it, Bennett, make yourself useful and set your sister on fire, would you?"

Rising to his feet the vampire made no attempt to control the vampire tells contorting his face as he snapped off a sturdy bough from the tree. Walking dead swayed in the amid the Spanish moss that edged the swamp ten feet away. Watching the corpses weave in and out of the willows' trailing branches weeping into the fetid, pungent waters was both eerie and sickening. There had to be at least a dozen, if not more, animate corpses forming a loose ring of protection around the ritual spot. The maddening dance of flame coming from Amelie's magic circle skittered in the dark night, limning the unkempt silhouette of each shambolic corpse. The vampire's keen hearing could just make out the low drone of an incantation. He couldn't shake the bone deep suspicion that the odds, never exactly in their favour, were about to shift even more.

"I'm tryin'," Ambrose threw up his arms, sending the corpse of a man in a train guard's uniform skipping over the surface of the swamp like a pebble. The warlock swore heatedly. "Amelie's outplayed us."

"Oh really, do tell." Darting forward the vampire used his tree branch like a spear, punching through the stomach of one corpulent corpse and driving forward, using the skewed body as a makeshift battering ram. They needed to push forward. If he could just get his hands on the little witch...! He kicked the flailing fat man in the stomach, wrenched free his spear, whirled it like a medieval knight with his trusty halberd and sent four other corpses tumbling to the ground. Ambrose dutifully set the writhing dead on fire.

"It's the blood," the warlock panted, swiping at the trickle of swaet dripping from his brow as he followed in the vampire's wake, periodically setting fire to a fallen opponent as the vampire snapped necks, spines, and any other breakable body part to clear them a path towards Amelie and her ritual site. "She's tied her magic to her blood. She ain't just powerin' the spell with energy from the dead." Ambrose pursed his lips bending down to pick up a small, jagged shard of tree branch lying on the spongy ground. "She's tied her own life to it." Ambrose's hand closed on the sharpened spike of warped wood. "And mine." He added sadly.

The vampire stopped abruptly slamming a vicious elbow into the throat of a charging corpse with dizzying speed. "What was that?" He demanded. The crazy sulphur burn of the fire cast slicing shadows of infernal light and dark across his face and caught in his eyes like hellfire.

Ambrose merely sighed, his shoulders rising and falling in defeat. "Should'a figured it out sooner. Never could figure why she left me alive to stop her. She had to have known I'd call you."

"Meaning what?" The vampire shot a look between the cryptic warlock and the willowy shadow of the witch who had caused all this trouble in the moving glare of the fire lit circle.

"She's got us vampire," Ambrose's hangdog expression was remote and sorrowful, his jaundiced eyes resigned as he too looked towards his sister. He could already feel the creeping tendrils of her spell climbing up through his veins, robbing him of his free will.

"I'm sorry." He told the vampire turning back to face his ally, hand clenched around the stake of wood. "This ain't of my choosing."

Suspicious and wary the vampire opened his mouth to demand a better explanation only to gasp in pain and surprise as the warlock shoved the broken, splintered end of wood into his gut.

* * *

Elena ran through the boarding house on a mission. Dawn was creeping in, still a few hours from sunrise, but the night was growing old. Damon's signet ring hung from the same chain as her vervain locket and Elena was acutely aware of the deadline she had set herself. The broken windows and other damage to the house made it a death trap for a vampire without magical protection from the sun.

Hitting the wrecked parlour Elena ran to the large bay windows. She was stopped dead about a foot away from the actual windows by the witch's spell. Cursing under her breath Elena could only hope that this plan would work. In Stefan's room she had found an old wooden easel in the back of his closet. Now she set it up as close to the window as she could get, dragged back the tattered edge of the ruined drapes and positioning the easel in pride of place where anyone looking in from outside would be able to see it. Next she clambered up on to the chest of drawers against the back wall so she could yank a picture frame from the wall. Flipping the heavy gilt frame around, she then scrawled a message onto the back of the painting and set it up, message facing the window, on the easel. After this she dragged a couple of end tables over to the easel and set up a series of candles and tea-lights she had scrounged from various places in the house. Lighting the candles with a box of matches she hoped their illumination would be enough as the electric lighting in the parlour wasn't working.

"Stefan, I hope you can read this." Elena couldn't see or hear anything from outside, but she was almost certain that was due to the spell. Even if Stefan was still out looking for Damon he'd have to come home soon, and when he did she wanted him to know she was okay. It gave her strength to know that Stefan was out there somewhere fighting to get her and Damon out of the boarding house. She wanted to make sure he had enough information to do that.

Not that Elena had any intention of just sitting around waiting to be rescued of course. Touching her fingers to the heavy lapis ring around her neck Elena shivered, feeling the air grow chill around her. Slowly her hand moved towards the other pocket of her thick, too large borrowed robe. Her eyes narrowed as the dozen or so tiny candle flames fluttered, guttering in the plummeting temperature. Tilting her chin Elena fingered the object hidden in her pocket.

"I know you're there." She spoke into the suffocating silence. There was no answer, the candle light began to dim, the flames bending and shrinking against the pall of heavy, stinking cold seeping into the room from every angle. Elena stood in the centre of the parlour barely breathing as she strained every one of her human senses for sign of the ghost. "Show yourself."

There was no answer once more except the stinging cold and the biting reek of rust and river silt. Elena gritted her teeth. "Is it Emily? Are you still trying to bring your mother back? Why? You're both dead." Elena's eyes slunk around the room, the only sound coming from the undamaged grandmother clock and the whisper of the struggling candles. Elena raised her voice. "It's over, Amelie. It's over."

Silence; Elena counted down the seconds by the beat of her heart. The palms of her hands had begun to sweat, a cold, clammy stickiness. She could taste her pulse in the back of her throat along with the encroaching stench of dead things. One by one the candles around the easel sputtered and failed. Then something cold and wet plopped onto the top of her head. Elena jumped, breath hissing from her clenched teeth. Another drop of cold, wet liquid struck her forehead and Elena leapt forward, hand scrubbing away the liquid even as it stung her skin. Two more drops hit the back of her hand.

Blood; thick and dark, icy cold blood dripped from the ceiling right above her head. Spinning around Elena jerked her head up to the ceiling and promptly forgot how to breathe.

* * *

The acrid scent of burning dragged the vampire back to full consciousness. He could feel ropes, stinging like poison ivy, binding him to a tree. Blinking his eyes open he looked down almost dispassionately at the stick thrust into his abdomen. Then he looked up at the ring of fire rising three feet in the air all around him. Finally he turned to look at the two people standing side by side beside a makeshift altar created from deadfall. He swallowed painfully acutely aware of the wood digging into his body.

"Why?"

Amelie Bennett, wild of eye, ignored him. She held a large, curved knife in one hand and a still beating heart in the other. Therefore it was Ambrose who answered. His tired eyes regretful but his gaze steady. "She's my sister."

The vampire laughed bitterly. "Not a reason. Not remotely a good reason." He wriggled against his bindings hissing as the ropes brought his flesh out in blisters. "Vervain? You soaked the ropes in vervain?"

Ambrose shook his head. "Nope, but she did." He nodded towards Amelie who was busy playing with a couple dozen hearts all arrayed across her altar. "Amelie was always the planner, vampire. She had this whole thing thought out. Knew exactly what we'd do."

The vampire felt his lips curl up in a sneer. "Don't pretend you weren't a part of that plan from the beginning."

Anger bubbled beyond the burning point of pain where the stake lodged in his innards, but more than that he felt...defeated. Not just physically but on every level. He had tried, God he had really tried, these last thirty-six years to keep his head above the metaphorical waters. He killed but not excessively, he worked to control his bloodlust and the huge knot of hatred and resentment eating away at him like a canker every day. He fought to retain something of who he used to be even as he faced down the prospect of a century without the one thing that gave his existence meaning. He kept his word and abided by his promises. He tried to believe in the things he had once believed in - and for what? To die like this; betrayed by two people he had sheltered and protected for almost all their goddamned lives?

Ambrose sighed, "It ain't what you think, vampire." The warlock came forward and crouched before him. Not wanting to appear weak, despite the fact that he most definitely wasn't in a position of strength right now, the vampire looked back at him with a look of carefully constructed indifference.

"Indeed. Then I suppose you tricked me into coming here, staked me in the gut, and knocked me unconscious merely as an entertaining ruse?" He smiled bitterly and looked back at the witch fondling her stolen organs and chanting gibberish under her breath. The flames guttered and jumped at her words, spitting violet sparks when Amelie threw one of the hearts into the fire. "If your intent was to lull your sister into a false sense of security I think you've been hoist by your own petard." He sneered. "She seems very secure in her power to me."

Ambrose had been watching Amelie as well. He shook his head, tired and empty. "She's my sister." He repeated and then, before the vampire could interrupt with some choice words of his own he spoke again a note of urgency entering his tone. "That's a bond o' blood and flesh stronger than most anything. Amelie...she..." Ambrose's throat locked, teeth clicking together impudently as his words were choked off. He sputtered and coughed, clasping at his throat.

"What the...?" The vampire jerked his eyes from Ambrose to Amelie who had stepped away from her altar and now stood watching her brother, a look of mute anger contorting her sharp narrow face, matted hair frizzed by the moisture in the air buzzing about that cruel head like a dark halo. Ambrose's dark face mottled greyish puce as he fell sideways onto the ground, kicking his feet as he suffocated.

Realisation hit the vampire at the same time as the magic tang of burnt copper hit the back of his throat. "Blast it woman, you're doing this to him, aren't you?"

Amelie turned her head towards him then. She wore a mask of dried blood, cracked and peeling over her face and her eyes, dead yet fired by an obsessive mania the vampire recognised from looking in the mirror, swivelled to him. Without a word she raised a hand and clenched her fist rhythmically in the air. Pain exploded behind the vampire's eyes once again and he bit his tongue to stop himself crying out, writhing against the poisoned bonds holding him trapped against the tree.

Powerless to stop her, the vampire could do nothing but breathe raggedly through the pain and watch Amelie summon a couple of her surviving zombies. The corpses grabbed hold of Ambrose and dragged him towards the altar as Amelie picked up her chanting once more. The zombies hefted Ambrose onto the altar where he lay, limp and unresisting on his back, his head turned so he could look at the vampire. When Amelie picked up the vicious edged knife once again the vampire suddenly understood exactly what was going to happen. "...Don't...damn it Amelie...he's...your brother..."

* * *

Staring up at the ceiling Elena could barely believe her eyes. A seam of blood, moving like a cloud of ink through water, was spreading outward across the parlour ceiling right above her head. Trails of viscera dribbled down from the spill, thick and viscous and moving fast. The ceiling moved like shifting sand in a desert wind, suppurating and bowing downward, the dribbling trails of blood thickening even more. Blood poured down onto the couch and spread like snakes across the hard wood floor towards her. Elena turned on her heel and ran. She hit the doorway of the parlour just as the ceiling caved in and a wall of blood crashed through the room.

Speeding right past the stairs to the second floor Elena ran towards the kitchen and the back of the house. The walls shuddered, pictures flew from their brackets, lamps exploded in geysers of glass and sparks, as Elena hurtled through the corridors of the boarding house. The blood followed her, streaking along the walls and the ceilings. She hit the kitchen, her feet slipping on the tiling so she skidded into the central island. Overhead the recessed lighting flashed on, neon bright and dazzling, before blinking out, plunging her into darkness she had to blink away.

Elena threw herself over the top of the island as a spout of blood burst forth from the wall and tore through the air. She took cover behind the island leaping up as soon as the blood spout smashed into the bank of cupboards mounted to the opposing wall. She grabbed for the edge of the sink, fumbling for the extendable shower-head like attachment to the faucet. Above and behind her the hanging wrack of copper and brass pots and pans crashed down onto the island, the sound so loud Elena half-screamed and pulled out her secret weapon from her pocket. Something sibilant hissed through the room and the hair on the back of Elena's neck shot up, electrified. She spun around; the extendable faucet clasped before her and a fistful of salt in her other hand.

The blood ghost, solid as she had been on the stairs, rose up, a swaying serpentine column of filthy black liquid right before Elena. Gagging at the reek of blood, death, and rot invading her nose Elena leaned back as far as she could until her spine screamed and she was almost bent backwards over the sink. The towering mass of brackish crimson blood pulsed and grew, increasing in mass and density as sticky trails of blood spewed from the very walls of the house towards the ghost.

Elena watched, not breathing, not moving, unable to get away as the - _thing_ – that had once been Amelie Bennett stretched upward towards the ceiling and outward towards the far corners of the kitchen. The face of a woman, lean and cruel, extended from the very centre of the pulsating mass towards Elena's own. Its mouth gaped open, falling far wider than any human's could. That sucking maw widened and widened further until it obliterated the face and threatened to swallow Elena's whole head. The column of death curved inward faltering and wavering; a crashing wave seconds from falling.

Elena chose that moment to strike.

"Go to hell!"

She threw her fistful of salt straight into the stinking vortex of the ghost's mouth and thrust her other hand, holding the faucet head, forward at the same time. The granules of salt hit the body of the ghost and started sizzling and bubbling, frothing in instant reaction. Elena's thumb hit the switch on the faucet and a solid jet of water punched a hole through the blood creature like a laser.

The ghost screamed, the towering wave toppling. Elena threw the folds of bathrobe over her head and dived to the side as blood erupted in a corrosive wave across every inch of the kitchen.

* * *

Once upon a time the vampire had watched the very meaning of his existence go up in smoke and fire in a night of lies and betrayal that had left his heart in pieces and his mind a cess pit of anguish, hate, and breath taking loss. This night was not the same. Yes there was fire, yes there was betrayal, yes there was pain, but it wasn't the same.

It still _hurt_ all the same. It hurt as he watched the angry little girl he had protected from afar since the night of her mother's death plunge her knife straight into her baby brother's diaphragm and up through meat and muscle to the delicate knot of tissue that was his heart. It heart to meet Ambrose's eyes as his sister dug his heart out of his chest and the man simply lay there and let her. He looked at the vampire and nodded, his eyes holding a certain conviction the vampire did not understand. Ambrose lips moved silently: _get ready vampire. _Then the light drained from the warlock's eyes as death swept in.

"Damn it...you stupid child...why?"

Cursing the vampire fought his bindings, heedless of the stick still wedged inside him. He fought to get free, fought so he could rip Amelie to pieces with his bare hands. The rich rush of arterial blood that exploded upon the smoke laden air simply spurred him on. He stared at Amelie, impassive and empty behind her face mask of blood, and fresh hatred ignited in his brain. The flames leapt, green and gold like copper fire, as Amelie tore free her brother's heart from its mooring in his chest. There was a flare of power, something primitive and sweeping that seemed to emanate from Ambrose in the moment of his death, and the bodies of Amelie's dead slaves dropped like broken marionettes all around. The witch jerked her head up, startled, and grasped the heart close to her own chest. She stumbled back from her brother's body. The vampire felt a searing wash of pain course through him, centred upon the stake in his gut, as that power hit him and the broken tree branch tore free of his body and went spinning through the air. Moments later the ropes holding him to the tree fell away.

"No!" Amelie shrieked.

The vampire wasted no time in lunging for the witch. He had the deep satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen, fear flashing through mania, as he barrelled into her and threw her across the clearing. Her body crashed into the altar and he heard the crack of breaking bone. Amelie moved feebly, lips beginning another incantation that he swiftly silenced when he kicked her savagely in the ribs. Amelie was not beaten yet however, she hit him with another searing wave of pain to the brain and tried to crawl away, still clutching Ambrose's leaking heart pressed to her chest like a favoured toy.

Enraged the vampire grabbed her ankle and yanked her back, hauling her up by the hair and tearing the heart from her grasp. He wrenched her neck back and darted forward.

"You want Emily? - Well then let me send you to her."

He gashed his fangs against her throat, ripping a jagged tear in the flesh but not drinking. He wanted nothing to do with this bitch's poison. He threw her down onto the ground and rose up to his feet, watching as her blood pumped into the ground. He wanted to watch her die, slowly, while choking on her own blood and vitriol. The fire, whipped into frenzy by Ambrose's death, leapt and danced five or six feet up and the heat roared against the vampire's back. He panted, eyes locked with Amelie.

"She could have run," he snarled staring into the eyes of someone who loved one person more than reason, more than anything, including her own brother, and had been prepared to kill and destroy and wreak havoc on anyone who stood between her and the one she lived for. "Emily chose to die. She _chose_ to abandon you. You stupid little fool..._you weren't enough_. She chose to burn rather than live for you."

Lying on the ground, shuddering and convulsing, Amelie Bennett smiled through the blood, old and new, painting her face. "You...are the fool..." she coughed spitting viscera. "I...needed you...and you did just...what I needed..." Flopping on the saturated ground like a landed fish Amelie reached up one bloody hand towards him. "...Kill me...and become me...vampire..." she laughed. "This isn't...over."

Before the vampire could react, Amelie lashed out with the last of her power, the last breath of life inside her, and a wave of force hit him and threw him across the clearing, right through the dancing flames, and into the fetid waters of the swamp. He sank like a stone, screaming all the way to the bottom.


	18. Chapter 18

_Fatal proposals _

Elena crashed through the door of Damon's bedroom, panting and sweating, still clutching the container of salt in her hand. She slammed the bedroom door shut behind her, threw salt at the wood and down around the threshold and scattered some more grains at the four walls. Hopefully that would keep the ghost out of the room. Shrugging off Damon's blood spattered robe Elena retrieved the stake, dagger, and last vervain syringe and clambered onto the bed beside the vampire.

Precariously balanced on her knees on the mattress she then poured more salt onto the floor around the bed in a loose circle before dusting the sheets with a handful more. Fatigue beat like a drum against her temples as she flopped down onto the pillows beside Damon. Her throat was dry and parched and the ebbing surge of adrenaline that had seen her through her encounter with Amelie's ghost left her muscles twitchy and aching.

She closed her eyes and tried to regulate her breathing and pulse rate. God she hoped Stefan had found her message before Amelie destroyed it. She missed Stefan fiercely. She missed his calm. She missed him because even when they disagreed Stefan always kept his cool and always had a plan of action. _Stefan_ wouldn't have trashed the boarding house with an axe before drinking himself into a stupor.

Grumpily Elena rolled over on her side and collided with Damon's back. He was still out cold; the vervain, not the mention the other trials of the day, keeping him insensate. Abruptly Elena was angry. Staring at Damon's broad back, she resented the fact that she was trapped in here with him and not Stefan, even though she knew she had no one to blame but herself for that fact. No one had made her choose to help Damon. She couldn't really blame Damon for Amelie's spell either – even though she _really_ wanted to. How screwed up was it that the one person Damon had killed in a long career as a psychopath who actually _deserved_ it, was the one to come back from the dead looking for revenge? And why now; she'd had a hundred years. Why did Amelie Bennett have to pick Mystic Falls Virginia in 2011 to stage her own diabolical plan: _the sequel_?

Huffing in annoyance Elena wriggled a little closer to Damon, until her forehead pressed against the smooth dip between his shoulder blades and her arms, folded up between her body and his, notched along the line of his spine. Elena inhaled noisily, an almost sob that was more due to spent adrenaline and exhaustion than real tears.

Damon's unique scent curled in her nostrils as she breathed in; the lingering hint of leather jacket (which seemed to be uniform for all vampires) mixed with the suggestion of something sharp and herbal like sage or thyme, and of course overlaying that was the patina of aged spirits, smoky and rough. Whenever Damon came too close to her (which was pretty much all the time) and she caught his scent Elena found herself imagining old style saloons with smoky interiors and petticoat wearing harlots dancing the cancan. She imagined heavy old mahogany furnishings and oil lamps; smog and mist on bitter cold nights where little match girls were stalked by death along cobbled streets.

On the edge of sleep Elena breathed comfort in familiarity and nuzzled closer, one arm unfurling to wrap around Damon's narrow waist as she eliminated the distance between them on the bed and nestled her face against the nape of his neck. Damon wasn't Stefan, would never be Stefan, but Elena found that she didn't really need him to be.

* * *

Stefan paced outside the boarding house; the night sky had aged from velvet black to orange tainted sepia with the encroaching dawn. He had always loved this time most, the in-between period where the night creatures returned to their burrows and nests but the day had yet to fully begin. There was something of an ending and a beginning to this time; it gave hope even as it promised closure.

God only knew that hope and closure were in short supply right now.

Completing his fifth restless circuit of the mansion ground Stefan once more looked in at the parlour window. Something like an hour ago he Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy, and Alaric had watched as Elena set up her message. They tried vainly to get her attention until Bonnie stated that the spell probably stopped the occupants of the house from being able to see or hear them. It had been agony to watch Elena, so beautiful and fearless, lighting candles and manhandling his old easel just so she could leave a warning for _him_. Him; she was the one trapped in the house with his unstable brother and the malevolent spirit of a vengeful witch, and yet her first priority was to warn him for _his_ safety. Damn her, but she broke his heart.

_Stefan. Damon and I are trapped by Amelie Bennett's ghost; she's a necromancer –that's deadly to old vampires. She's evil and she could hurt you like she has Damon. Please get away from the mansion; protect yourself. Go to Bonnie and warn her. I'll protect Damon. I love you. Elena. _

Stefan stared blankly at the facade of the boarding house and prayed in vain for any sound or visual cue to reassure him that Elena was okay. He'd seen the moment the candles had gone out in the parlour; he'd seen the look of fear flash across Elena's face when she'd looked up at the ceiling and then turned to run from the room. He hadn't been able to see what had scared her but he could imagine. He'd heard about necromancy. Lexi had spoken of it in the same awed and wary tones she had used to tell him of the myth of the Originals. It seemed impossible that a ghost could be so powerful, but if the last one hundred and fifty years had taught him anything it was that death really wasn't an impediment to either evil or chaos – both of which Mystic Falls had in spades.

Footsteps crunched across the gravel of the driveway behind him. Alaric cleared his throat. "Stefan – we need to go."

Stefan shook his head. "I can't." He kept staring into the darkened parlour window. "They're in there. I can't leave." He blinked rapidly. His skin itched, shoulder blades twitching. Elena's message had not so much answered questions as spawned new and far deadlier ones, but more than that Stefan found himself sinking into helplessness because Elena and Damon were trapped inside where he could not reach them. _I'll protect Damon. _Elena had written and the words had seared themselves indelibly into his brain. He didn't doubt them. He didn't doubt her. _He didn't_. No, instead it was the very promise in those words that ripped a hole in his heart and soul. Elena would protect Damon and Damon would protect her and nowhere was there any room, any _need_, for him.

"Stefan?" Alaric's hand dropped awkwardly onto his shoulder and Stefan spun, shaking the hand off violently, lips peeling back in a sneer. Alaric took a hasty step back and raised his hands in a placating gesture.

"Whoa, easy there," The history teacher looked at him through laconic yet keen eyes. "You know there's nothing you can do for either of them now." He said, stating the obvious to Stefan. "Bonnie, Caroline, and Jeremy have already left. Bonnie's going to look through the family grimoires and find out what she can about Amelie and necromancy. We're not giving up; we're retreating to regroup for battle." Alaric studied him, rumpled and mild, and yet far too shrewd for a man who was at least a hundred and thirty years younger than Stefan.

"I know," Stefan pinched the bridge of his nose. Trapped outside of the boarding house with no way in Alaric had offered him the use of his fold out couch for what was left of the night. The pragmatist in Stefan knew this was the sensible thing to do. He needed to crash for a few hours and then go hunt, but he couldn't make his feet move. He couldn't help just staring up at the boarding house. Elena and Damon were in there. They were _both_ in danger. It was strange to realise that despite all the times he'd feared for either Damon or Elena's safety he had never had to fear for both of them at the same time. He had never imagined the prospect of losing them both. Stefan didn't even want to touch on the reason why that made the fear so much worse this time.

"What it is Stefan?" Alaric interrupted his thoughts, "Are you worried about Damon hurting Elena or...are you scared of Damon being in there _with _Elena?"

Stefan jerked as if he'd been shot twisting around to stare at Alaric, his expression no longer calm or pensive. "What did you say?" Voice dropping low, all pretence that Stefan was just another slightly too mature seventeen year old boy fell away. Instead the tired, bitter predator narrowed his eyes upon the man who was his _brother's _friend not his.

Alaric saw the warning glimmer in those eyes and merely smiled, after all the vampire who was his friend made casually threatening his life a pleasant form of greeting. "The worst thing about knowing that the people you love are in danger and not being able to help them isn't that you can't help them," the other man confided dry and tired, "it's the fear that they really don't _need_ you to."

Icy stillness sloshed through Stefan, something like fear and outrage stinging in his veins. A surge of anger and blood lust rose inside him and he clenched his jaw. "Don't need help? Elena and Damon are trapped in there and..."

"Both are very capable of taking care of themselves," Alaric finished for him. He slouched where he stood, hands in his pockets and a crooked half smile on his lips. He was altogether far too at ease to be saying these things, ring or no ring. Stefan bit his inner cheek, teeth sharp enough to slice skin. The thin, tantalising tang of his own blood burned his tongue. He turned away hastily, jaw pulsing, gums aching.

"You're not hard to read Stefan," Alaric continued watching each tiny crack in the younger Salvatore's composure without either alarm or much sympathy. "You're not easy to figure out I admit, but you're not as much of a closed book as you think you are."

Stefan wanted to deny what he knew Alaric was not so subtly implying. He wanted to believe that he wasn't so transparent that this human man felt he could patronise him, but he couldn't. Damn it. He wasn't Damon. He didn't feel everything out in the open in front of an audience. He wasn't capable of baring his heart and soul like that – and he wasn't sure he even wanted to. Yet sometimes, sometimes, he did wish that the people he cared about could figure out the things he was too afraid to admit to. He swallowed bitterly.

"He's in love with her." Turning back to the house Stefan gazed up at the second floor. His brother's room looked out to the back of the property but he still stared through the brickwork and into the worst of his imaginings.

"He loves Elena – and Damon – he doesn't love like other people. He loved Katherine for a hundred and forty-five years; a dozen lifetimes of living for a fantasy and it - it consumed him - but it also sustained him." Stefan shook his head angry with himself for speaking, angry with Damon for being Damon, and just angry about so many things.

"Yeah," Alaric pushed, "that's not news." The man laughed softly, a laugh with an edge. "Hell, you and Elena use the whole unrequited thing against him every other day." He arched his brows. "What's the real issue Stefan? Because if it's Elena..."

"He won't feed on her," Stefan's angry shout cut through the air like a knife. He was actually pleased when Alaric started and took a step back as Stefan wheeled on him. He stalked forward until he had grabbed the other man and shoved him against Elena's battered car. "He won't hurt her, he won't bite her; he won't even ask her to bleed for him." Stefan bit out voice cracking on the edge of yelling. "He won't because he loves her that damn much that he will _starve_ for her."

"And you wouldn't?" Alaric was staring at him intently, wide eyed. His pulse rate had sped up but he still was not scared enough to keep his mouth shut. "No. You would. But you don't think you _could_; because your control is not as good as Damon's - at least not when it comes to blood." Understanding and a tiny hint of pity shaded Alaric's expression and Stefan let him go, turning away and striding a few feet over the gravel.

"I don't know." He ground out scrabbling for the control he could feel ebbing away with the night. "I love Elena, I'd die for her, but I...I just don't know if I could resist...the hunger...you can't know what it's like."

"Yet you're sure Damon can resist?" Alaric was openly curious. "Why? Damon feeds on humans all the time. Impulse control really isn't his strong suit."

Stefan shook his head irritated, not even bothering to turn around and look at the other man. "I know my brother."

A bitter laugh punctuated this statement. He looked up at the dying night sky, saw the cracks appear in the darkness and knew it wouldn't be long before that same sky was a riotous symphony of light and colour. The notion that he was looking at a bitter metaphor for everything Damon was, had been, and could one day be again, stuck in his throat like a rock.

Stefan was the 'good' Salvatore brother…but good wasn't necessarily _better_. Stefan knew that the day Elena figured that out would be the day he lost her forever. Looking up at the pre-dawn sky Stefan was terrified that that day might be today.

* * *

Elena wasn't sure what caused her to wake up; all she knew was that she was suddenly wide awake and all her newly acquired danger instincts were fully alert. The fact that she awoke with a pissed off vampire pinning her to the bed with vice-like hands to her shoulders might have something to do with that.

"You really are too stupid to live." Damon told her unsmiling, his pallor grey, his skin shiny with sweat and his eyes shadowed with pain and twisted capillaries. The blue of his irises appeared obscene against the thick clots of blood obliterating the white sclera. Elena swallowed hard, fingers crawling across the mattress to snatch up the container of salt. It had been stupid to fall asleep beside Damon after she'd vervained him. She should have gone up to Stefan's room, except that she'd wanted to be close to Damon, and not just to make sure Amelie couldn't get to him.

"I know how to fight the ghost." Elena spoke in a rush. "Salt. I remembered something my mom used to do. When she spilled salt she'd always throw it over her shoulder to ward off bad luck and evil spirits. When I threw salt at Amelie's ghost it hurt her. And water. If there's enough it washes away the blood. I think if we could…"

"Stop talking." Damon was staring at her like he was imagining how much fun it would be to rip out her heart and shove it down her throat. His eyes were popping and wild. Elena didn't think he'd registered a word of what she'd just said. He reached up to roughly jerk her head to the side and Elena's heart rocketed up to lodge at the back of her throat, which suited Damon just fine as he bent down to bite.

"Vervain," She gasped. "I drank some." Damon froze, still holding her head to the side with one hand and pinning her upper body with the other. She felt him hesitate. She held her breath waiting.

Damon snorted derisively. "Nice try." His breath tickled her ear. "But you're lying. You don't drink vervain. You have your necklace." He ducked his head towards her again.

Elena twisted as much as she could and managed to bend her knee and jam it into his sternum. Damon grunted, grabbed her and tangled his fingers in her hair pulling her head back. Elena threw a punch, connecting with the side of his jaw. Damon didn't even flinch. His lips latched onto the side of her throat and she felt his incisors jab flesh, a split second from biting all the way down. Elena switched tactics, reaching down to give a sharp twist to a part of his anatomy he _really_ wouldn't appreciate getting twisted.

"Oww!" Damon reared back letting go of Elena. She chose that moment to throw a fistful of salt into his eyes. He swore as the granules immediately made his eyes water and his distraction gave Elena chance to retrieve the last vervain syringe from the nightstand. She didn't drive it home immediately but instead waited as Damon swiped at his eyes and shook his head. Finally he looked back at her, still doing a good impersonation of a crazy person at death's door.

"What the hell Elena? I'm a vampire not a garden slug – you can't _salt _me to death." He blinked his eyes a couple more times.

"You were going to bite me." She shot back and held the syringe ready. Elena realised she was shaking. He really had been about to bite her.

"I'm hungry." Damon retaliated not seeming to care that he'd scared her. "And you were lying in my bed wrapped round me like a monkey in heat." His eyebrows rolled but this time it wasn't particularly flirtatious, though the look smouldered for other reasons. "That, Elena, is what I call an invitation."

"That's perverse." She snapped, face twisting in a grimace, more rattled by the near biting than she wanted to admit and still feeling pretty stupid about the whole thing. She _knew_ Damon was hungry and unhinged and what she'd done, falling asleep next to him, was sort of like going to sleep in the lion's den. She wouldn't trust _Stefan_ not to bite her under these circumstances. Had she really put more trust in the crazy people eating Salvatore than her own boyfriend? Had she gone insane?

"Sticks and stones," Damon sneered. "But words will never hurt me." He flopped back down on the bed and shoved a pillow over his face, a clear sign of surrender and a pretty good indication that he wasn't going to bite her.

Elena relaxed fractionally and lowered her arm holding the syringe. It was then that she realised she really _did_ trust Damon far more than logic dictated she should. It disturbed her to realise that even though Damon had never claimed to be anything other than the worst of his nature she still always expected him to rise to a higher standard – and more to the point, most of the time he managed it. That was why the near bite had scared her. She expected better of him than she would of Stefan. That realisation alone left her cold and more shaken even than the almost-bite.

"I'm sorry Damon." She said softly not entirely sure what she was apologising for. "I know this isn't easy for you. I know you're hurting. I wasn't thinking."

"I nearly ate you and you're apologising to me?" Damon asked incredulously. He pulled the pillow from his face to give her a highly sceptical look. "Are we going to have to discuss your martyr complex again?"

"No." Elena ground out stonily, irritated instead of chastened. It was amazing how swiftly she could go from feeling for Damon to wanting to poke him with sharp wooden implements.

"Good." Damon hugged the pillow to his chest and smirked tiredly at her seeming much more like himself. "If you're really feeling all emphatic about my plight you could just stop _vervaining_ me." His brows swooped down his forehead. "I am getting _seriously_ tired of that shtick."

"We need to come up with a plan for getting out of here." She told him deciding to move on from the whole biting incident. She slipped off the bed, mindful that her proximity probably wasn't helping Damon stay in control. Once almost-bitten, twice shy, Elena decided some distance was probably good for both of them.

"You didn't finish the story." She reminded him when Damon didn't answer her. She moved across the room to the tightly drawn curtains. The sun was rising and Elena wasn't sure Damon had realised she had his ring. Having the window at her back was an added layer of security should she need it, and as much as she could accept that she was partly to blame for what had happened between them, Elena wasn't going to be taking any more stupid chances when it came to dealing with the hungry vampire. "Whatever happened between you and Amelie in 1900 might help us figure out how to beat her now."

"What makes you think we can beat her?" Damon asked tiredly mood shifting towards fatigued fatalism.

Elena blinked in surprise, "What do you mean?"

"Don't you get it?" He levered himself up off the pillows enough to glare at her. "Whatever you think you did with your little salt shaker trick didn't do _jack_ to Amelie." He bit out.

"You're wrong. I hurt her." Elena frowned. "You weren't there Damon. You didn't see what happened. I beat her back. If we just work together we can force her out of the house and…"

"She's just _playing_ you Elena." Damon interrupted fixing her with hard eyes. "Amelie's a ghost. You can't hurt a ghost. She hasn't gone anywhere. She's _waiting_."

"Waiting for what?" Elena didn't like what she was hearing one bit. While it was true that she rarely liked Damon's solutions to problems – mostly because they tended to involve extreme violence and small scale massacres – she had never known him to lie down and give up before.

"For me to kill you," The look Damon threw to her as he sank back down onto the bed was utterly pitiless. "I was wrong. She's not anchored to the house. She can't be. She doesn't have a connection to this building. But she does have a connection to _me_."

"What does that mean?" Elena was really not liking the direction the conversation was going now, and not just because they were discussing her potential death – in fact that was the least of the things bothering her.

"It means we're screwed." Damon snapped. "You want a plan, Elena? Well here it is. _You_ need to kill me. The only way to beat Amelie is to stop my cold, undead heart."


	19. Chapter 19

_Reap the whirlwind Pt 1._

The day began like any other in Mystic Falls; the sky was a faultless if slightly chill blue, the birds were singing…and a dead girl was crossing the street.

It was one of the Sheriff's deputies who called it in first, keeping his distance but watching from his patrol car as the fair haired girl with the blood stained party dress and pallid flesh stumbled into the slow crawl of mid-morning traffic. After radioing dispatch, Deputy Dawkins took his car out of park and crawled down the road paralleling the girl as she staggered on the sidewalk. The few people out in the centre of town this early on Sunday morning were keeping their distance. Dawkins rolled down his window and leaned out.

"Hello, miss?"

The girl kept walking and Dawkins caught a better glimpse of the blood and other stains tracking up her grey tinged legs. The girl was walking with her head down and her arms folded across her chest. The faint whiff of rotting garbage seemed to follow in the girl's wake.

"Miss – excuse me – I'm talking to you."

Dawkins stopped his car and jumped out. The girl wasn't moving very fast, her gait wavering and unsteady. In two swift strides he had come up behind her. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

"Ugh."

He let go in an instant, jerking his hand away. The flesh of her arm had felt cold, cold and wrong, slippery and loose like the flesh of a store bought chicken breast. Dawkins hand fluttered towards his holster. He wasn't part of the V5 unit but no one could patrol a beat in Mystic Falls for long without figuring out that this town wasn't really like other towns. Dawkins swallowed and gathered his nerve, pacing after the girl.

"Miss I'm ordering you to stop."

The girl kept walking; she hadn't even reacted when he'd grabbed her. Dawkins lengthened his stride and swerved around the girl so he could cut off her forward momentum. He fumbled open the button flap of his holster and curled his hand around the butt of his gun. "I said stop."

The girl stopped mostly because Dawkins was blocking her path. Her arms fell from the tight self-hug to hang limp at her sides. She did not lift her head and her hair, tangled and greasy, hung like a veil obscuring her face.

"…need more…"

Dawkins blinked, "What?"

The girl's head jerked up, drool glistening from her chin and filmy eyed, her mouth was crusted with blood and darker, thicker things. "…More…" Her arms whipped up snatching with cold bloodied fingers for Dawkins head, shoving him backwards against the wall of a vacant store. "More. Need. MORE." The girl's head rolled with her bellow, jaw rocking back and forth unnaturally. Dawkins shoved her back, yelping in surprise as he grabbed up his gun.

"Stay back." He pointed the gun at the girl's blood saturated chest as she rocked back on her heels like a sapling in a strong breeze before lurching toward him again.

"..More," The continuous mantra blurred together like the rumble of an old engine. Dawkins fired. The girl's body jerked, the bullet hitting her in the shoulder. She fell knocked down by the impact. She did not bleed. Dawkins backed off, a cold trickle of icy sweat racing down his neck as he stumbled a few steps into the alley that ran behind the vacant store.

"..More."

Arms came around the back of Dawkins, arms wrapped in the reeking filthy remnants of an old army jacket. Dawkins screamed, the pungent aroma of decomposition filling his nose. He fought off the hold of a disgusting derelict only to be grabbed by a boy in a baseball cap whose head hung alarmingly to one side.

"More. Need. MORE." The girl in the party dress with the bullet in her shoulder lunged at Dawkins, knocking him to the ground; seconds later the two men piled on top of Dawkins as well. The deputy thrashed and fought, trying to get away as he felt cold, clammy fingers ripping at his flesh.

* * *

"No, no way." Elena shook her. She stood leaning against the bureau in Damon's room, hunched in on herself and clasping her elbows. "Damon. _No_. There's another way; a better way. We just need to find it."

"Enough with the Pollyanna spiel," Damon had moved from his bed to sit on the floor of his bathroom suite with his back to the tub. The bathroom was safe from the rays of the sun peeking in through the curtains of his bedroom. He looked at her tiredly. "How many times Elena? You want out of this house alive? Then this is what we have to do."

"You can't ask me to do this." Elena swallowed around the hot lump lodged in her throat. Her eyes stung and the few hours of sleep she'd managed to steal last night had left her feeling muzzy headed. Her stomach was an empty twisted ball and she felt vaguely sick.

"Can and did," Damon retorted tilting his head back and staring listlessly up at the ceiling of his bathroom. She watched him swallow hoarsely, his skin sagging around the taut bones of his face. Entering into his second day without blood Elena could tell he was flagging. The fact that he seemed to have already resigned himself to inevitability infuriated her.

"There has to be another way." She repeated, as if saying the words over and over would make them true. She pushed away from the bureau and crossed the room, hesitating uselessly at the threshold of the bathroom annex. Her palm smacked against the doorframe.

"When I wanted to give myself to Klaus you wouldn't let me give in. You convinced me to fight. This isn't any different. Except now _you_ need to fight." Elena felt a trembling anger build inside her. The whole mess with Klaus and the curse was still a raw wound in her heart and mind. It would probably take years before Elena could look back on that time without a shudder. Yet here she was, alive and free of the curse in large part because she had had friends, Damon among them, who would not let her die no matter the odds against them.

"Wrong." Damon sing-songed finally turning his head so she could see that even the vivid blue of his eyes seemed dulled. "That was Stefan and his reminiscence of doom, gloom, and redemptive self-discovery. Thank him for breaking you out of your sacrificial funk. I just threatened to break your arm."

Elena shook her head and pushed into the bathroom, forgetting all about their unspoken agreement not to get too close to one another. "Don't do this. Don't pull away from me now." She dropped down onto the tiled bathroom floor on her knees in front of him.

Damon turned his head away, fixing empty eyes on the far wall. "You should move. I'm hungry and you smell tasty."

Biting her lip on a whole host of retorts Elena scooted back until she was as far across the bathroom as she could get from Damon but still in the room with him. "Stefan and Bonnie will figure something out." She insisted pretty sure she'd used this argument at least five times already. "We just need to hold on a little longer." She stared at the dark floor tiles, watching as the clearly delineated individual squares blurred together as she blinked away tears of…frustration? Fear? Anger? Or maybe some combination of them all mixed together?

Damon said nothing, just continued his silent contemplation of the far wall. The weight of the emptiness swirling around them, thick with deadly undercurrents and secret undertows, crushed Elena. She swept her tangled, uncombed hair behind her back and glared at Damon as her nails dug into her drawn up knees.

"Coward," she spat at him, "Hypocrite."

He smiled, just the tiniest bitter twitch of his lips, as if he found what she said, what she was feeling, amusing. Elena snapped. She leapt to her feet, hands reaching for the first object she could find – which happened to be a bar of soap from the soap dish on the side of the basin. She hurled it at his head. Damon caught the bar in one hand without bothering to turn to face the oncoming projectile. Elena saw red.

"You fucking bastard!"

She turned around and wrenched open the medicine cabinet bracketed to the wall and started throwing the contents at the vampire. "You can't do this." A bottle of aftershave shattered in wet splinters against the tiled floor. "You don't have the right to give up." A canister of deodorant ricocheted off the wall and fell into the tub. "This isn't fair!" A container of shaving form skimmed through the air and cracked the glass siding of the shower. "You fight, Damon, _you always fight_." A selection of disposable razors and an electric shaver were the last things to hand. She threw them down on the ground so that they spilled and bounced across the tiles. "You fought for _me_." Elena shuddered and gripped the lip of the basin for dear life. "I told you…you'd lost me forever. _I told you_. But you never stopped fighting for our friendship. Why won't you fight for us now?"

Damon hadn't moved a muscle throughout her entire tantrum. Even now he just sat against the tub with his eyes closed. The almost astringent bite of eucalyptus from the broken aftershave bottle burned her nose and throat when Elena tried to breathe through the fury that had taken control. Her throat was too raw to scream anymore. She had rarely felt more alone.

"Why?" She repeated plaintively sinking back down against the basin and the wall. "Why would you fight for someone who rejected you but not for yourself?"

Finally Damon stirred, turning his head toward her and staring like he'd never seen her before. "Are _you_ really asking _me_ that question?"

Elena swallowed suddenly scared of this man before her in a way she had never been before. This wasn't fear of what Damon might do if – or when - he lost control. This wasn't fear of the twisted mess of bittersweet acceptance she saw in his eyes when he looked at her and Stefan. This wasn't fear tainted disgust for the callous monster she had first met. This wasn't even fear of the way Damon could make her feel, in the few and far between moments she didn't guard well enough against him. Instead Elena was afraid of all the things they didn't say to one another but might be about to now. The feelings she couldn't accept; the hurt she couldn't forgive except that she already had; the betrayals that should break them but never would; all the things that shouldn't be but just were between her and Damon.

Staring back at Damon there were so many things she wanted to say. Help me. Let me off the hook. Don't ask this of me. Be who I need you to be even if I reject you once more or a hundred thousand times again. She didn't speak however, couldn't speak, even as she felt like a callow, foolish girl who wasn't strong enough to deal with any of this. How was it possible that this was her life now? What had she done to deserve this mess?

"I don't understand," She whispered finally, helplessly.

"Life isn't some paint by numbers fantasy, where you get the dream-boy, complementary steak-knives, and perfectly boring happy ever after so long as you only colour inside the lines." Damon snapped with uncanny insight, causing Elena to jerk like he'd slapped her. She stared at him wide eyed, the blood rushing from her head.

"You still think if you fight hard enough and for long enough, you'll win. Well guess what?" He snarled face twisted and savage in a way that had nothing to do with being a vampire. "_I did too_. I was a _believer_. And I fought. I fought for everything I ever wanted. And you know what? I have _lost_ every single battle I ever fought."

Suddenly Damon was in front of her, still too fast for Elena to fathom. His hands clasped the back of her head, one palm against the nape of her neck while the fingers of the other hand tangled in her hair. She had no choice but to look straight into his eyes. What she saw there she would never be able to forget.

"You _know_ why I still fight for you." Damon hissed pressing a kiss to her forehead that was at odds with the anger in his eyes. "_You know_." His fingers danced, fluttering like butterfly wings over the contours of her face as he held her immobile with his words. "You think I'm giving up?" A harsh, phlegmy laugh forced its way out of his throat. "Damn you Elena. You have _no clue_. No clue what it feels like to fight and lose over and over again," he pulled away from her, restrained fury in every jerky movement. "This isn't an 'us against the world' thing. This is you against the monster I will _always_ be. You need to understand that. I'm not_ good_. I'm not_ strong_. I'm a weak, stupid, selfish man and I am _begging_ you to do this Elena, because losing this time…when it's _your_ blood on my hands... will _destroy_ me."

* * *

"So we're dealing with the vengeful ghost of a black magic practicing Bennett witch who can make zombies?" Jeremy asked crumpling an empty bag of chips and throwing it down amid the detritus of a long morning's brainstorming session. He looked around the room for confirmation. "And this witch has it in for Damon because Damon probably killed her – after her brother asked him to?"

"If we've understood Bonnie's dreams and Elena's message correctly, then yes." Stefan agreed. He was knelt on the floor of Alaric's living room flipping through one of the Bennett grimoires fruitlessly, the history teacher's bachelor pad apartment subbing for the boarding house as the gang's head quarters for the time being.

"Right – so what does any of that have to do with Elena?" Caroline asked as she sailed back into the living room from the kitchen alcove with a fresh carafe of coffee. Unintentionally playing the perfect Founding Family debutante Caroline then poured Stefan, Alaric, Bonnie and Jeremy a fresh cup of Joe with perfect poise.

"Maybe nothing," Stefan admitted grimly. "It could just be she was caught in the house by accident. There's no way to know without a better understanding of Amelie's history with my brother."

"He never mentioned anything to you about this?" Alaric queried from his place slumped in his orange easy chair. Stefan turned to give him a rather sardonic look.

"Until the last year most of my conversations with Damon involved him listing the ways he was going to destroy my life. We didn't really chat about all the people he's pissed off in the last century and half."

Alaric grimaced, "Too bad." He sipped his coffee. Then he paused as something occurred to him. "I'm curious about something. I've heard some stuff about how you and Damon were turned from Elena. You were friendly enough with Emily Bennett, right Stefan?"

Stefan sighed irritated. "If you're going to ask why Emily asked Damon to watch over her family and not me, I don't know. And believe me I've wondered enough about that over the years." He glanced at Bonnie who had finally lifted her head from the pages of the old tome she was studying to listen. "All I know is that he did watch out for them, in his own way. He made sure that records of the Bennett line were altered in official documents so that no one in Mystic Falls would be able to trace the line back to Emily."

"What?" Bonnie tensed perceptibly. "What do you mean?"

Stefan shrugged. "It came up a few months back when we were looking into the witch massacre site. He said he did it when your family moved back to Mystic Falls. It was part of a deal he made with your great-grandmother. Damon thought having a Bennett witch in Mystic Falls would be useful for the tomb spell, so he made sure your family's connection to Emily was officially…erased."

"Really?" Alaric spoke up. "That answers one of my questions. I thought it was odd that Damon would tip-off the Sheriff about witches in Mystic Falls and potentially point her towards Bonnie."

Bonnie frowned truculently, "Like he'd care if he did expose me."

"No," Stefan spoke up, "Damon wouldn't do that Bonnie. He respected Emily, and he kept to his deal to make sure her line continued after her death." He glanced at the witch and his expression was oddly cool, "Damon doesn't kill through proxy. He does his own dirty work."

Bonnie didn't look particularly thrilled to hear that, or the implied chastisement from Stefan. Bonnie always thought it was weird when Stefan took offence when someone called Damon out on his basic asshole self. Honestly sometimes Bonnie felt like the only person capable of remembering that Damon Salvatore was a psychotic monster who deserved to be char-grilled about a dozen times a day.

"Huh," Caroline said an odd look on her face. "No wonder he was so bent on that ugly-ass necklace thing." She glanced at Bonnie and raised her eyebrows. "If I'd spent the last hundred years looking out for a bunch of witches and they stole my stuff I'd be kinda pissed too."

Bonnie glared at her friend. "That necklace was an heirloom of my family. It didn't _belong_ to Damon." She flipped her hair back from her face. "Do I need to remind you he wanted to use it to open a tomb and release a whole bunch of vampires on this town? Or that he ripped my throat out?"

Caroline winced and raised her hands. "Okay, jeez Bonnie, chill. Damon's an evil rat-bastard, I know. _Seriously_. I have way more reason to hate him than you do. I'm just saying that, from his point of view, getting screwed over by Emily after all that work had to royally suck."

"_From his point of view_?" Bonnie bridled. "I don't care about his point of view…he ripped my throat open!"

"He was pissed…it happens!" Caroline – the vampire – argued back.

"Hey Stefan?" Jeremy, who had wisely kept his head down and stayed out of the last exchange between his girlfriend and Caroline, now looked up from the journal come grimoire he'd been reading. "You know how Damon went all eternity of misery on you for, like, the last century?"

Stefan wrinkled his brow dryly. "I had noticed that, yeah. What's your point?"

"Well, uh, when did it start? I mean was he like hanging around you killing people since 1864 or did he go mental later on?"

Stefan's brow furrowed a little more and he studied Jeremy for an uncomfortable moment before answering, acutely aware that everyone in the room was interested in this answer. "Damon was angry with me when we first turned, but he left. I don't know where he went but I didn't see him again for almost forty years." Stefan's expression clouded with memory. "He was...not the Damon I remembered. He'd lost touch with his humanity, become something...twisted." Stefan shook his head voice soft but still pained. "I knew Damon blamed me for Katherine, for a lot of things. But back then I wasn't prepared for just how bad he'd become."

"Huh," Jeremy's expression didn't exactly match the atmosphere. There was a light in his eyes as he tapped his finger against the book. "You said you didn't see him for forty years, so that would have been, what, early 1900's, right?"

"It was January 1901," Stefan confirmed. "Jeremy what does this have to do...?"

"I dunno," the younger Gilbert answered before Stefan finished asking the question and there was an edge of excitement in his voice. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but don't you think it's weird that Damon starts his whole campaign of terror on you just a couple of months after he killed Amelie?" He looked around the room and each person's face in turn. "Look, you said Damon went crazy right before the zombies and Amelie turned up, right?"

Alaric sat forward in his chair. "You think there's a connection – not just to Damon's weird behaviour now, but that Amelie could have had something to do with him flipping out in the first time?"

"Well yeah, I mean it's just an idea, but..." Jeremy trailed off letting the implications of his theory hang in the air. His eyes flicked to Stefan who was in deep brood already.

In fact his mind was whirring. The memories of his first encounter with the vicious, remorseless killer his brother had become over a century ago were still stark in his mind. In a periodic career of making him miserable throughout the twentieth century that first 'reunion' in 1901 still represented the pinnacle of Damon's depravity and hatred for him, matched perhaps only by his callous execution of Lexi. The mere idea that Amelie Bennett could have influenced Damon's descent in any way ripped open old and angry wounds inside Stefan's heart and soul. His fingers tightened around his coffee cup a hairsbreadth from shattering it as he clumsy placed it back on the coffee table. Taking a deep breath he shook his head and reined in his emotions.

"It's an idea." He nodded to Jeremy. "But without more information it doesn't really help us deal with the situation now."

"I think I might have something." Bonnie smoothed her hand over a double spread in one of the family grimoires. "A summoning spell to bring Amelie to us. She's a Bennett so I'll use my blood. Combined with the spell in here," she tapped her fingernail against the page of the book, "to summon spirits, it might be enough to draw her to us." Bonnie glanced over to Stefan. "Maybe if Amelie's away from the boarding house the spell keeping Elena and Damon trapped will break."

Alaric shifted in his chair. "You want to summon a vengeful spirit to my apartment? Are you sure this is a good idea?" His mind immediately went to his damages deposit with the landlord; he really hoped this wouldn't end up with him and Stefan left sleeping in dumpsters for the night.

"It's our best option," Bonnie defended her suggestion. "We can set up a circle of protection; the book can tell us how. We'll be careful, but Elena needs us."

"Yeah I know…" Alaric subsided and would have slumped back into the chair but at that moment his cell hummed in his pocket. He pulled it out and blinked at the unfamiliar number. "Excuse me." He stood from the chair and wandered over to the kitchenette. Admittedly privacy was in short supply with two vampires in his living room, but Alaric still made the effort before answering the call.

"Saltzman here?" He made the greeting a question as he had no clue who was calling him.

"Mister Saltzman, this is Sheriff Forbes – can you meet me at the corner of Main Street and Pike? There's…a situation. I'd call Damon but…"

"Uh," Alaric kicked his brain into gear, "Right yes; he's unavailable." He nodded even though the Sheriff couldn't see and glanced over at the four people in his living room listening in to the best of their ability, which in the case of Stefan and Caroline, was considerable. "What's the problem? Did you find our witch?"

"No," the Sheriff's tone was both sardonic and a little shocked, "but I found one of our missing people." There was a hesitant pause. "I've never seen anything like this. This girl is missing her heart but she's still walking. Hell, she attacked one of my officers."

Alaric met Stefan's eyes, saw the understanding there even before he mouthed ''zombies are back'' for the benefit of the two people without super hearing. "I'll be there as soon as I can." He told the Sheriff and hung up. Alaric sighed, wondering how it was possible that this was his life now. He squared his shoulders and eyed each of the three genuine teenagers and one faker in turn.

"Can you please try not to wreck my apartment with your magical black rite while I'm gone? I have to go..." he hesitated feeling a shiver crawl up his spine, "and pretend to be Damon."


	20. Chapter 20

_A/N: Hello all, firstly a huge thank you to everyone for all the lovely reviews – I wanted to get this chapter up before replying to people individually – as I think you might have more to say after reading this chappie! ;) _

_Secondly a shout out to Lexicon – I agree with you about Damon's culpability; it's what makes him interesting. The issue with Amelie isn't so much that she made him the way he is (though she may have been the straw that broke the camel's back), instead she and Damon are birds of a feather, corrupted by their hate/sorrow, and Amelie used that to her advantage._

* * *

_Reap the whirlwind pt 2_

Forty minutes after Alaric had left his apartment his guests had transformed the living room from tired and threadbare bachelor stereotype to candlelit magnificence. A large circle had been drawn around the carpet in salt – used for its properties of purification and because it worked to ward off spirits. Furniture had been shoved to the far corners of the room and candles of varying shapes and sizes had been placed within the salt circle. Bonnie, sitting inside the circle, had been chanting over the pages of one of her family grimoires for at least twenty minutes.

"How will we know if it's working?" Caroline whispered to Stefan as they, plus Jeremy, knelt within the wide salt circle as far from Bonnie as they could. She watched the gently jumping candle flames and breathed in the warm, oddly comforting scent of hot wax.

"I don't know," Stefan admitted in hushed tones. He watched Bonnie almost as intently as Jeremy did. Caroline sighed and fidgeted.

"I think my foot's falling asleep." Absently she shivered as she stretched out her leg and massaged feeling back into her toes. The candles rippled as if caught in a breeze. Bonnie's voice rose up a notch, her chanting becoming more earnest. Jeremy looked around him, watching the candle light splash murky gold around the artificially darkened room. Caroline rubbed her arms, brow creasing when she noticed the hairs standing up on end on her forearms.

Stefan frowned, nostrils flaring. "I can smell blood."

Jeremy nodded tersely. "I think it's working."

Bonnie's head jerked up and back and she shouted towards the ceiling of the apartment in English, arms upraised as a flare of burning power washed through the room causing the candle flames to leap like blow torch jets.

"Amelie Bennett I call you!"

Something screamed; an ear popping noise akin to a sonic boom. Books tumbled free of Alaric's over-burdened plywood bookcase to the floor outside the circle. Caroline slapped her hands over her ears and ducked her head. Stefan grabbed for Jeremy who startled like a young colt and almost fell out of the protective circle. Bonnie, closest to the edge, felt the icy blast of stinking air rake over her face and tear through her hair. She reached out with all her magic to drag the spirit to her.

The two vampires, one witch, and one relatively normal teenaged boy all watched from behind the salt and candle circle as something hideous materialised in the shadowed room beyond. The air rippled, darkness condensing like ink through water, staining crimson. The scent of rot and swamp filled the room and the cold caused the candles to shrink down even further. In bloody increments a female figure emerged from the swirling mass of blood and shadow. Lean, wiry limbs, a face made of cruel angles, and even the faded dove grey folds of a battered dress all rose up from the receding tide of spectral blood. Like a cameo broken free of a liquid mould the ghost of Amelie Bennett stood revealed before them.

"Whoa," Jeremy breathed out before he could stop himself, "no way."

Bonnie stood up on shaky legs. She faced the taller spectre without flinching. "Amelie Bennett I command you…"

"You do not." The voice cracked like a whip through the room, felt more than heard. Bonnie flinched as the other three people with her scrambled up. The dead witch stared through garnet eyes at them all radiating a palpable sense of hatred. "Speak no words to me, Bonnie Bennett, for you have already sealed your fate."

"I summoned you," Bonnie tried again knowing that if she didn't bind the ghost to her will things could get ugly very quickly. "I command you to…"

The phantom hissed, a feral, twisted sound, and in a spotted blur of blood and thicker, darker things, Alaric's coffee table flew through the air, crashing against the protective barrier spell Bonnie had erected before beginning the summoning. The candles flared copper flame green as the spell stopped the table from crashing through the circle but Bonnie still stumbled back, the words of the binding ritual flying from her mind. Jeremy rushed forward to support her, but she shoved him away.

"Child," Amelie's ghost sneered. "You command nothing." Tolstoy's War and Peace ripped through the air and against the barrier followed by a dozen more books whipped up from the floor near the bookcase. Overhead the electric light bulb burst, raining a small shower of glass down onto the protective dome.

"Ugh," Caroline flinched. "Bonnie –do something."

In the kitchenette cupboard doors flew open and the contents crashed out. Cutlery erupted from a burst open drawer clattering to the ground in a riotous shower and the dishwasher spewed pots and pans five feet up into the air. The nearly tangible sense of cold closed in around the circle along with the reek of rot, damp, and spoiled meat. A couple of the candles sputtered out and Bonnie rushed to reignite them before the protective barrier began to fail. Alaric's orange easy chair tipped backwards onto the floor and then streaked across the room to crash against the far wall. The carpet began to peel back from the skirting boards. A corona of swirling, brackish crimson darkness rose up around Amelie's ghost and stretched out across the room.

Stefan stepped forward and spoke in a voice that carried with it every one of his hundred and sixty-two years. "Amelie Bennett."

The ghost's narrow face snapped towards him instantly and the room stopped throbbing with the force of her presence. The ghost looked at Stefan and some cold fey light ignited behind her deep set eyes; recognition.

"Do you know who I am?" Stefan demanded sizing the ghost up as he would any other predator.

"Vampire," the ghost all but purred the word, turning her body towards Stefan in a rippling fluid movement that was like water crashing down a cliff face, "But not _the _vampire."

Stefan frowned quizzically not sure what to make of that answer. "I'm Stefan Salvatore I…"

Amelie interrupted him, cooing an almost lullaby. "Little blind lamb, led to temptation, drank deep from the traitor bitch and tripped into damnation."

Stefan flinched just a little. "Traitor bitch…you mean Katherine?"

Amelie didn't answer and instead sing-songed another verse of her nursery rhyme. "Little Saint Stefan, all alone, pure as snow but stained with blood, cossets his grief and nurtures his sorrow. Little Saint Stefan, loved by all; he never saved a soul."

Stefan narrowed his eyes. "You were a child when Katherine turned me. Emily hid you away. You can't know anything about me."

"Stefan don't." Bonnie glanced at him sharply. "Spirits like this draw energy from negative emotion. She's trying to provoke you."

Amelie laughed a shocking sound that rattled in the bones. "Stupid girl. I don't need _this_ vampire to sustain me. I have the other one. He's better. His spirit is as mine. Hatred begets hatred. He carried me here."

"Damon; you mean Damon." Stefan clenched his fists. "What did you do to my brother?"

"Nothing; what he is, he made of himself." Amelie's thin lips pulled back from a very real set of blackened teeth. The smile seemed to bisect that thin, mean face, stretching wider than a human smile ever could. "His hatred harboured me all these long years. Your brother," The ghost hissed mockingly her form bubbling and shuddering before materialising across the room near the bookcase almost before anyone had realised she'd disappeared. "Oh how he loathes you. Little Saint Stefan makes such sport of suffering but never counts his blessings. Little Saint Stefan, such a selfish child – had it all and wanted more."

Uneasy Stefan steeled himself and demanded of the ghost: "What do you want? Why are you doing all this? _Tell me_."

"Stupid little lamb," Amelie laughed. "You have no power over me. You are of no use; your soul is pure, for you never share it. You are _beneath_ me." The spirit sneered and dematerialised, vanishing in a spatter of blood that pelted the beige carpet. The pressure in the air lifted and the temperature rose almost immediately.

"Is she gone?" Caroline asked after a handful of tense minutes had rolled by in complete silence, while the four people in the circle strained their senses for any hint of the ghost returning.

"Stay in the circle." Bonnie insisted spreading her fingers out in the air and sending out tendrils of magic that set the candle flames dancing.

"That was – intense." Jeremy sounded almost giddy. "What was up with those rhymes?" He glanced at Stefan, "And how come she hates _you_ so much?"

"Because Damon does," Stefan said quietly eyes scanning the room. "She said that she'd fed off Damon's hatred…everything she said - I've heard it all before –from Damon." Stefan stared at the blood stains on Alaric's carpet putting the pieces of the puzzle together. "Damon's been sustaining Amelie's ghost for the last century, without even knowing it."

* * *

Alaric walked into the Mystic Falls Sheriff's office and introduced himself to the desk worker who immediately pointed him in the direction of the cells. It had taken him too long to get to the original rendezvous point at the corner of Main Street so he'd agreed to meet the Sheriff back at the station instead. She hadn't been happy about it, but unlike Damon, Alaric didn't have super speed so they'd both had to make do.

"More. Need. More," The sound of a growling sort of guttural mewling led Alaric to the end cell where Sheriff Forbes and a couple of deputies stood. Alaric stopped a few feet from their huddle and cleared his throat.

"Sheriff?"

The Sheriff turned around, her face drawn into harsh lines of worry and tension. She strode over to Alaric and shook his hand hard enough to stop circulation. "Thanks for coming. You need to see this." She jerked her head back towards the cell and turned to lead the way. Alaric trailed after her. He was not at all sure he really did need to see whatever was in that end cell but figured he didn't have much choice either way.

"Huh," he blinked, "Uh yeah…isn't that something."

There was an obviously dead girl standing the corner of the cell. Her skin was a dark, bruised-fruit grey and she was covered in blood and filth of an indeterminate nature Alaric didn't even want to begin to guess at. Occasionally she growled out another mangled word while rolling her head from side to side.

"This…thing...attacked one of my men. She was found trying to open his chest with a piece of broken store window glass, behind a drycleaners on the corner of Pike and Main." Sheriff Forbes explained. "Dawkins is going to make it but he needed thirty stitches to his sternum. We think it was trying to cut out his heart."

Alaric just nodded, "How'd you manage to bring her – I mean _it_ - in?"

"Force of numbers," the Sheriff shook her head. "Dawkins called in a suspicious sighting before he was attacked and dispatch had sent officers to the scene even before the owner of the drycleaners walked right in on the creature eviscerating him." She turned to Alaric. "This isn't a vampire."

"No," Alaric agreed stalling for time as he tried to figure what to tell the Sheriff. Damn it. This whole situation was spiralling out of control. He decided to evade via another line of questioning. "What are you going to do with it? I mean you can't leave it in the cells and interrogation probably won't help."

Sheriff Forbes eyed Alaric keenly well aware of his weak evasion. She didn't call him on it however and instead pressed another line of attack. "I think this thing is connected to our witch. It – the body – matches the description of a girl reported missing in Richmond about three weeks ago; Chrissy Jennings, twenty-one year old college drop-out. If I'm right and the missing and dead are all victims of this witch, we could have a real problem."

"There could be more of them in Mystic Falls," Alaric nodded, blithely ignoring the fact that he _knew_ there were more zombies somewhere in Mystic Falls. He stared at the zombie in the cell and tried to figure out a way of ensuring the Sheriff and her people had the right information to deal with a zombie infestation without giving too much away. He came up with an idea. When in doubt evoke the name of Damon, which carried serious weight with the Sheriff.

"I got a call from Damon late last night." He lied smoothly. "Bad line so the message was sketchy, but he gave me some more information about why a witch might take their victims' hearts." Alaric glanced over at the Sheriff trying to gauge her reaction. "There's something called necromancy. It's…well, Damon said it was a way of controlling the dead. I guess this is what he meant." He nodded towards the dead girl.

"You spoke to Damon?" The Sheriff tensed noticeably. "Where is he? Did he give you any more information about what happened to him?"

Alaric shook his head wondering how to navigate these trickier waters. "Like I said it was a bad line and we didn't talk for long." He shrugged uneasily. "He said he'd had to get out of town. He was pretty sure the witch had him marked as her next victim and whatever she – or he I guess – had done to Damon was bad enough he didn't think he'd be able to defend himself. He was worried about Stefan too. So both Salvatores are gone." Alaric briefly wondered how Stefan would feel about this story (and the inference that he needed to be protected) but shook it off and continued with his creative lying. "He said he'd try and be in touch with more information as soon as he could." Alaric winced sympathetically. "He sounded pretty rough."

Sheriff Forbes sighed and nodded sharply, buying his story for the time being. "We could use his help," she admitted honestly. "But if this," she jerked her hand toward the dead girl in the cell, "is what this witch does to her victims then I'm glad Damon and Stefan are someplace safe."

"Yeah," Alaric agreed disingenuously, thinking about spirit summoning spells and the perils of bloodlust and slow starvation, "Safe."

* * *

Caroline was the first to realise something was wrong. Bonnie was kneeling on the carpet inside the circle trying to sense for Amelie's ghost. Stefan and Jeremy were talking about all the crazy stuff the ghost had said, which seemed pointless to Caroline because – hello! – crazy, evil, ghost chicks lie and play crazy, evil, head games, but anyway all this meant that Caroline Forbes was the only person paying any real attention to her surroundings. Therefore it was Caroline who noticed the dark stain begin to form on the carpet beside Bonnie. She reacted instinctively, which was a shame because had she thought it through she might not have been so quick to throw herself in harm's way.

"Bonnie!" Darting forward Caroline knocked the other girl away, ending up sprawled across the dark wet patch on the carpet herself.

"Caroline! What are…?" Bonnie didn't get to finish her sentence before the stain under Caroline sprouted blood-liquid arms that grabbed the vampire by the throat. "No – Caroline!" Bonnie threw out her arm, trying to dissipate the bloody hands locked around her friend's throat with a wave of power. It didn't work, and as Caroline clawed uselessly at the phantom arms choking her, the rest of Amelie's body rose up from the sticky pool of black blood spreading outwards across the carpet.

"No, this isn't possible." Bonnie stood frozen in place unable to believe her protective circle had failed. She'd follow the instructions in the grimoire perfectly. She'd made sure that all angles were covered. The dome protected them from all sides as well as from above. It should have been foolproof…except Bonnie hadn't thought to make the protection stretch to underneath them as well. Oh god. She'd screwed up and now the ghost was inside the circle with them.

Their only protection from Amelie was now null and void.

"Urk…get off me!" Caroline shoved her fists through the fluid body of the ghost, her arms passing harmlessly through the liquid mass and out the other side. The ghost's 'blood' burned like vervain against her skin and Caroline shrieked, pulling back her arms to find them covered in weeping sores and blisters. Her throat was closing and not just because of the corrosive bite of the ghost's fingers around her neck. She couldn't get free; it was like the ghost was leeching her strength away from her. Dark spots danced before her eyes and she started to blackout.

"Get away from her," Stefan was suddenly right there, shoving his own arms through the spirit's body and dragging Caroline out of reach. Relief flooded through her and she twisted around so she could wrap her arms around Stefan's neck in a tight hug. She would never get tired of having Stefan rescue her.

"Look out!"

All four people in the room hit the floor as Alaric's bookcase hurtled through the air towards them. The barrier spell, which hadn't protected them from Amelie, did at least stop this latest projectile, but the distraction afforded the ghost time to reform completely inside the circle. She lunged like a towering wave of gore towards Bonnie. The living witch blasted her back with a wave of her arms and a mass of stinging blood splattered down. The deluge doused some of the candles; the offal reek of burnt blood and smoke created a choking miasma inside the failed protective circle that only made the darkness of the room all the more confusing.

Amelie reformed in an instant and this time went for Jeremy. The spirit surged toward the youngest Gilbert, sweeping his feet out from under him on a wave of noxious liquid. Jeremy yelped as he fell backwards and Amelie's swirling form rushed over him in a drowning wave.

"Jeremy!"

Caroline, Stefan, and Bonnie all leapt forward trying to pull him out of the fluid cocoon. Bonnie screamed in rage and tried to light Amelie's phantom form ablaze as the two vampires dragged a choking, gasping Jeremy away. The sound of Amelie's laughter hissed through the room.

"You cannot stop me. I thrive on the beat of a dead heart." Amelie's voice sing-songed through the air, seeming to echo from the walls all around them.

"Bonnie banish her – now." Stefan hissed as he helped a fumbling Jeremy to get his blood sodden shirt off before the toxic blood burned every inch of his skin. Bonnie began to chant and Amelie once again sent her laughter crawling through the air.

"Too late little lamb."

Caroline screamed as the ghost materialised without warning right before her nose and erupted like a geyser with enough power to throw Caroline across the room and pin her to the wall.

Caroline's screams turned to spluttered choking as the spirit began to force her liquid form down the vampire's throat. She kicked her feet against the wall, pinioned as she was near the ceiling and unable to get loose. Agonising pain erupted in her brain as she tried not to swallow any of the ghost blood, but inevitably ended up doing so. She could hear Stefan, Jeremy, and Bonnie all screaming at one another elsewhere in the room but it was distant, lost almost entirely in the cacophony of Amelie's raging hatred, an emotion so huge and maligned it sounded like the end of the world.

Then, as suddenly at it began, Caroline felt Amelie's hold on her weaken. The spirit shuddered and the choking flow of blood halted. Abruptly Caroline was falling to the floor, limp as a rag-doll. She spat the last of the foul blood from her mouth and looked up in time to see the spirit body of the ghost shudder, writhe, and twist in pain. Dissipating liquid hands clawed at a sunken chest searching for a heart that wasn't there.

"Noooooooo," the phantom wailed; hideous bloody form fading away like steam rising on the air. "No he wouldn't…_he couldn't_…I can't…be…stopped…" Amelie's ghost was gone, truly gone, before the echoes of her pitiful wail had ceased.

* * *

Elena Gilbert swayed at the top of the stairs her vision swimming as she grabbed hold of the balustrade to stop herself toppling headfirst down the flight of steps. Tiny little wounded animal noises kept trying to escape her throat. Her hands were slippery with blood as she gripped the banister rail and started down the stairs. There was static in her mind, a high pitched buzz that might have been a scream she couldn't afford to release. Her body felt light and weightless, insubstantial and weak. Her legs were wobbly, made of water. They wouldn't hold her up for long.

She kept her eyes on the front door of the boarding house.

She went down the stairs step by step. The silence yawned behind her. She couldn't look back. There were monsters hiding in the corners of her sight. She wanted to be sick. Her heart palpitated like a trapped bird inside her ribcage. Step by step she left that room behind. In her free hand, the one not holding on to the stair rail, she clutched tight to the dripping knife sending spasms shooting through the muscles of her forearm.

Just make it to the door. She just had to make it to the door.

Her left leg gave way underneath her and she lunged for the banister with both hands, the knife falling from her hand and clattering down the stairs ahead of her. She sagged against the banister, holding herself up by her arms only, her legs unable to take her weight. The screaming in her brain threatened to reach her lips and she knew if she started she wouldn't stop. She doubled over in a silent howl, teeth gritted against the white noise chaos blazing within her skull. Her hands were covered in blood –so very, very red.

Somehow she made it down the stairs, she wasn't sure how. She didn't remember making it down the last few steps. All the same she found herself standing before the front door of the boarding house. She stared at the rich glossed wood, innocuous and mundane, and had never felt so much hate towards any one thing in her life. She choked on the scream fighting for release inside her. Surging forward without conscious thought she wrenched on the door handle, yanking on the door as if she could tear it from its hinges.

The door flew open and Elena fell out, crashing to her knees on the front stoop, caught in the bright, chill sunlight of the outside world. She was free. The spell was broken. Just like he said it would be. Shakily Elena held her red hands up to the sun and moaned like something inside her had just died.

* * *

Stefan, Bonnie, Jeremy, and Caroline were all trying to put Alaric's apartment back together again as best they could when Stefan's cell phone rang. He sucked in a quick breath of air through his teeth when he saw the call display. He hit the connect call button so fast he almost broke the phone.

"Elena - thank god! Are you okay?" Relief surged inside him, ecstatic and almost painful for one shining moment before he heard the sounds coming through the line. The staccato panic of shallow breathing and soft half-gasp moans. "Elena! Elena? Answer me. What's wrong? What's happened - are you hurt?"

There was no answer except the soft sounds of pain and the rasping of her breathing. It sounded like agony. It sounded like heartbreak. Stefan's head swam even as something primal and terrified crawled up his spine, taking root in his brain. "Elena?" He whispered lips numb. "Please say something. _Speak to me_."

"Stefan!" On the other end of the line Elena broke down, a huge raft of sobs flooding the line that combined hideously with a high keening continuous moan that set Stefan's teeth on edge and made him want to scream just to drown it out.

"_Elena_," He tried to make himself heard over the sounds of her distress.

"I'm sorry." He thought he heard her say, her voice choked and stuttering. "Stefan."

"I'm here Elena. _God_. Tell me where you are. Please."

"I'm sorry," he heard say again as if he'd never spoken, "Stefan. I'm sorry...so sorry."

"Sorry?" Stefan's blood was ice in his veins. "Elena what's _happened_ to you?"

Elena continued to sob, continued to whisper _I'm sorry_ with each gasping breath she took. "There was no other way! I…oh god Stefan…Damon he said…and I…"

Stefan's world tilted on its axis, his vision greyed and a great roaring surged up in his ears that might have been his heart and might have been something else entirely.

"What," he swallowed choking out the words around the vicelike grip that had seized his chest. "What did Damon say? Elena _what did you do_?"

There was no answer, except for the sound of her broken sobs, yet somehow Stefan knew all the same. "No...no!" He shook his head back and forth, back and forth, and the cell phone slipped from his suddenly numbed fingers. It fell to the carpet at Stefan's feet. The sound of Elena's desperate weeping trailing up to him even as the phone came to rest in the centre of one of Amelie's left over blood stains.


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N: Hello all – this chapter is a sort of an interval scene, which occurs concurrently with Amelie's fight against Stefan et al during chapter 20. Hopefully it answers some of your questions from the previous cliff-hanger. It will also be the last Damon POV chapter for a little while, as sadly, Damon will be chilling out in mummified undead limbo for the next few chapters – however I should stress, in famous Arnie fashion: HE WILL BE BACK._

* * *

_Kicking the elephant in the room_

Damon Salvatore watched a shaft of sunlight crawl across the floor of his bedroom, threatening around the edges of the bathroom doorway but not breaching his dark little refuge. His head ached dully, his jaw throbbed and his eyes were dry and sore. Thirst crawled spider-like up his throat and his chest felt tight. This couldn't go on. He had a leash on his thirst for the moment, too tired and sick to muster the energy for a good homicidal rampage, but he wasn't stupid. He'd crack eventually. Resisting temptation had never been his thing. He turned to face the girl curled up in the corner by his wash basin. The silence was killing him by degrees. He needed to fill it and didn't feel like poking at the elephant in the room (yet). Elena wasn't ready to see things his way at the moment, but she would eventually. She wasn't going to die for him, after all. She wasn't stupid either.

He cleared his throat. "When I was a boy I wanted to join the gold rush."

"What?" She jolted and accidentally smacked her head against the side of the basin as she came out of her stupor. Damon smirked humourlessly.

"California gold rush of '49 – 1849, I mean." He rolled his eyebrows. "Lot of people went West in the 1850's. We didn't have Twitter back in the day, but you still heard stories."

Elena was giving him a very funny look, like she couldn't decide whether to indulge him or stay angry at him. "Why are you telling me this now?"

He shrugged. "Why not? I thought we should bond." He narrowed his eyes. "Before I snap and suck you dry, I mean. I'd go watch TV but spontaneous combustion - so not a good way to go." He jerked his head towards the sunlight and twinkled his ringless fingers for emphasis.

If looks could kill all his problems would have been solved right then due to the high intensity death rays Elena was sending his way. "You wanted me to kill you a moment ago. Now you don't want to burn. Isn't that a bit picky?"

He rolled his eyes. "One, I don't _want_ you to kill me, Elena. I just don't want to _kill you_. Two," he stopped and extended a finger to make his point. "Decapitation, staking, or removing my heart will kill me – what I'm suggesting will _hurt_ but it won't off me forever." He rolled his neck. "It's not like I need your permission. I'm just asking you to come in once I'm done and make sure I'm properly shrivelled and bloodless." His joints were beginning to ache, which could be a leftover from his most recent vervaining, but was more likely the beginning of the agonising, _slow_ desiccation he had to look forward to if he couldn't force this stubborn girl to see sense. Why was it so hard for her to get it through her head that she wasn't saving anyone playing the waiting game? He sighed and tried to rein in the sudden surge of frustration he felt. Screw not poking the elephant, if he didn't they'd both wide up dead.

"The plan is sound Elena." He snapped. "Man up and get over yourself."

"Shut up," She fired back, "Don't you dare start that again." Elena looked ready to launch herself at him and scratch out his eyeballs or, alternatively, start breaking things again. Damon tensed in anticipation. Elena was very, very hot when she was feeling violent and if Damon was going to have to suffer through all this he at least wanted to enjoy the perks while he could. He ended up disappointed however as Elena marshalled her self-control and swallowed back the anger igniting her soft brown eyes. She gritted her teeth and turned her face away and he expected that they'd sit languishing in silence until they both starved, but Elena surprised him once again.

"I can't really imagine you pan handling for gold in California." She said quietly, anger still there in her voice even as she clung on to the distraction he had offered for all it was worth.

"Well," He smiled a small yet genuine smile. "By the time I was old enough to go the rush had mostly petered out," he admitted. "Didn't stop me dreaming though." Tilting his head back Damon did something he rarely bothered to do – peel back the tattered pages of his personal history. "Always knew I didn't have a future in Virginia. Father was just waiting for an excuse to disinherit me and give everything to Stefan – which he did, actually, but that's not the issue." Damon shook his head skimming over that unpleasant twenty-first birthday 'announcement' from the old man. "No I wanted to make my own fortune; wanted to be a pioneer." He chuckled softly. "I used to beg Mother to read me newspaper cuttings about Bingham Young's passage West."

"Bingham Young…wait, you mean the Mormons?" Elena almost choked. "You wanted to be a _Mormon_?"

"Sure Elena." He did the eye thing. "I have a strong appreciation for polygamy." Licking his dry lips he leered at her, trying to at least force the ghost of a smile from her. "The no drinking thing could be a problem…but, eh, I'd just eat all my dozens of wives." Stretching out a foot to nudge Elena's ankle in reproof he gave her a mock stern look. "This was 1847, I was six, and they were pioneers opening a trail to the West. They were awesome; religion didn't come into it."

Elena shifted a little her expression smoothing out and body relaxing as curiosity sparked in her eyes. "Why didn't you do it? Go West I mean?"

"I don't know." Damon shrugged, suddenly awkward. He'd asked himself the same question many years back and never come up with a satisfactory answer. He'd mostly given up playing 'what-if' in the last one hundred and sixty-eight years but now he found himself coming back to all those answerless questions. What if he'd said screw it and left Virginia after his father had made it clear he wasn't worth more than a paltry stipend to be controlled by his baby brother? What if he hadn't gotten roaring drunk and signed up with the army of Northern Virginia on the same night? What would his life have been if he'd followed the railroads and the trails out to California, or someplace along the way? Who would he have become if he'd never met Katherine?

"Was it Stefan?" Elena's hesitant question stirred him from his own introspection. He frowned.

"Was what Stefan?"

"Was he the reason you didn't leave Virginia?" Elena looked both intent and hesitant. "The two of you were close back then. I just wondered if you didn't want to leave him."

Damon smiled a bitter little smile. "Believe it or not Ripley, my life, and the world in general, do not revolve around my brother." He cut her a look that he supposed wasn't particularly friendly, but damn it she'd hit a nerve and he hated when that happened. "It's hard, I know, to imagine that anyone might actually _want_ to get away from Saint Stefan and his holy aura of Effortless Perfection, but then you didn't grow up with him." His smile turned sharp and caustic. "The allure of Sir Broodalot wears thin once you've seen him spit up on his nurses and soil his smallclothes."

Elena gave him a droll look. "I have a little brother Damon; I know how annoying they are." She put on her firm but compassionate face, an expression Damon really did not like because it almost always formed the precursor to some kind of declaration about his soft and fluffy side he could generally do without. "I also know that you love Stefan, I think you loved him even when you hated him, as screwed up as that is, so don't act like you couldn't wait to be free of him."

Damon didn't bother to reply to that - what was there to say? Elena was stubborn, as stubborn as Stefan, and she'd hear what she wanted to hear and see what she wanted to see. Truthfully Damon was tired of even thinking about Stefan. He was tired of hating him, tired of living up or, more to the point, _down_ to his expectations. Mostly he was tired of being judged in comparison to his brother and not as a man in his own rights. Yet all this was old news and he didn't feel like rehashing it.

So instead he kicked the elephant again.

"You're being stupid, you know." He looked at Elena through heavy-lidded eyes. "You should see this as pay-back."

"See what as pay-back?" Elena blinked at him, nonplussed by his unannounced change of subject, which was exactly how he wanted it. Damon's smile turned predatory.

"I killed Jeremy." He almost purred tilting his head back and gazing innocently up at the bathroom ceiling. "I snapped his neck and made him dead. If I'd had my way he'd have stayed dead too."

He didn't need to see Elena's flinch to feel it. In some other time and place he'd feel guilty, not just for rubbing her face in what he'd done, but also for killing baby-bro-Gilbert in the first place. Jeremy was more annoyance than acquaintance most of the time, but he was a fly in Damon's ointment that he knew and had spent time with and he…he regretted that he'd hurt him. Not as much as he knew Elena and Stefan wanted him too – Damon just didn't sweat casual murder like they did, but he regretted it all the same, and not entirely because of the hassle it had caused between him and Elena.

"I used to eat Blondie." He continued. "I used to fuck her and bleed her and then, when she was sobbing and whimpering and being _annoying _I used to fuck with her brain and make her say and do exactly what I wanted her to."

Elena had risen to her feet and now stood staring at him, face twisted half-way between disgust, outrage, and confusion. Her fists clenched and unclenched. "Stop it." She hissed between her teeth. "I know what you're doing. You can't manipulate me Damon." Her eyes blazed. "_I know exactly what you are_."

The smile wavered on his face then, seeing the curdled anger in her eyes and worse, the truth to her words. She _did_ know what he was and it…hurt. It hurt for a lot of reasons; some of them selfish, some of them less so. He rallied all the same. "Then what's the problem Elena? C'mon, I'm the bad guy. I'm evil. I'm…" he wracked his brain for juicy adjectives. "Perverse, twisted, insane – don't forget that – seriously emotionally disturbed of Virginia, that's me." He waved his hands for added effect. "I'm very, very bad and you should put me out of your misery."

Elena slapped him. If he'd been a little less tired and sick and just basically off his game he would have seen it coming and been able to avoid it (though he might not have bothered) as it was she actually surprised him. The stinging slap hardly hurt. He wasn't that far gone, but still it didn't make him feel good either. He touched his cheek and looked at Elena who had retreated back to her corner of the bathroom almost immediately.

"That was pointless." He told her flatly. "Hasn't anyone ever told you violence doesn't solve anything?"

Elena stared at him, the same devastating, soul eroding glare she had given him during their curse fact-finding road trip to Duke. The same look she had given him when she told him: _yes you have lost me forever_. He would never have believed it possible that he'd be glad to see Elena look at him like that again, but he was. He didn't want her to hate him, he knew too much about hate to wish that burden on her, but contempt and indifference would be just peachy. He was right, he knew he was, but Elena would never see it if she kept thinking she cared for him. If he had to kill every good feeling she had for him in order to save her then he would.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked him harshly, and to his distress the contempt collapsed into hurt. Damn it – that was not what he wanted. "Why won't you just wait for Stefan and Bonnie to figure something out?" She demanded, and he watched as all her anguish and contempt for the pathetic, vile monster he was became subsumed in a wave of compassion and hope. "They won't leave us Damon – we just have to trust that…"

"Go downstairs Elena." He spoke over her. He just had to shut her up. "Go downstairs, get some coffee, read a book, paint your goddamn nails just…just go away and let me do what we both know needs to be done."

Months ago he'd made a choice, probably a cowardly one now he thought about it, to confess the sin of his love to her and make her forget. He'd wanted to get it off his chest, hoped that just saying it would relieve the incredible pressure and free him from the feeling. He'd also hoped that it would release her from the burden too. Because he knew she knew – how could she not – almost every Tom, Dick, and Harry involved in their lives had an opinion about his useless, inconvenient adoration for his brother's girl. He knew that she hated it, the fact that he loved her.

At first he was pretty sure she was disgusted by the mere idea that someone like him could love her – and yeah, he didn't actually blame her for that, nice girls didn't appreciate self-serving psychopaths obsessing over them, or so he'd heard. Things had changed though; she didn't hate him anymore and was only disgusted by him seventy percent of the time instead of one hundred percent, but in some ways that was worse. It was worse for Elena anyway, because now she felt guilty. She felt guilty that her boyfriend's brother, the recovering homicidal maniac, was hopelessly in love with her. It was guilt that made her forgive him, Damon knew that. They were friends because Elena was too kind for her own good and couldn't leave the reject Salvatore all alone with his infatuation. So she gave him pity dressed up as concern and placated him with friendship not because she liked him, not because he was hot, fun, exciting, witty, dashing etc. but because he was dangerously unstable, lonely, and liable to snap necks at inappropriate times if she didn't at least pretend to tolerate him.

It broke his goddamned heart.

It broke his heart for _her_. If he could have obliterated the feeling, made himself stop loving her – or wanting her, or whatever the hell it was he felt that made him so full and so empty all at once – he would do it. If he could compel himself to forget he loved her he would, because he truly did love her and he knew that his love hurt her. He desperately, stupidly, wanted to never, ever, hurt Elena Gilbert again yet he did so just through his continued presence. He'd thought about leaving, bailing out of town as soon as the dust had settled after the Klaus debacle. He'd held out for the sake of his cover-story as Stefan's legal guardian and made plans to get the hell away from Mystic Falls and anyone associated with it right after Stefan's high school graduation. In the meantime he'd tried to be better, really better, not just hiding his failings but not failing to begin with – all to ease the burden on Elena as much as he could. He'd worked on sinking into the fabric of her life, becoming wallpaper she could look to when she needed something but otherwise ignore.

It was all bullshit of course. All the selfless, helpful crap, it was just window dressing over an open wound. He wasn't the solution to the problem - he was never the solution – instead he _was _the problem and there was no way he could make this all better for Elena. Inevitably he would only make things worse in the long run. He knew that. He just hadn't expected the inevitable to come so soon.

"Damon." Elena was talking and he hadn't been listening. Not that it mattered. They were done arguing back and forth. Elena wasn't the only bull-headed person in the room. He glanced at her disinterestedly, already plotting his next move.

"Don't make me drag you out of here." He interrupted whatever itineration of the standard 'never give up, never surrender' speech she was rattling off this time. "Not having my ring is inconvenient, but that's all it is." He made sure to afford her his most obnoxious smirk. "I will lock you in the damned broom closet if I have to. Stefan can find you once the spell is down. Knowing my brother's keen deductive powers it should only take him about a week to figure things out."

"You wouldn't dare." Elena squared her jaw – it was almost cute.

He laughed harshly and shook his head. Sometimes Elena read him so well he felt about as insubstantial as air, then other times, like now, she was so far off the mark it was almost sickening. He fixed his eyes on her and hoped to god she could read how very serious he was. "I've got nothing to lose. Let's not go there."

Elena's eyes widened unbidden and he saw the tiny flicker of fear in those brown orbs as she remembered that she was talking to a genuine serial killer, and maybe calling his bluff was not so smart. She wavered, her body language giving her away. "Damon – don't." She began but it was too late.

He bounded to his feet, using sheer force of will to close the gap between them before Elena could jump back into the safety of the pool of sun light puddling on the carpet just beyond the bathroom. Gritting his teeth he caught Elena up and threw her over his shoulder. Elena Gilbert was a feather weight and picking her up and blurring out of the bedroom, swerving to avoid pesky stripes of sunlight, shouldn't have been an issue even with her squirming and beating her little fists and kicking her little feet, but it was. He could do it, but it wasn't anywhere near as easy as it should have been.

"Damon!"

He dropped her on the leather couch in the remains of the library and slammed closed the library doors before blurring back up the stairs. He kicked shut his bedroom door, skimmed a patch of sunlight so he could heft his easy chair over to form a barricade, and then snatched the stake and the knife Elena had left on the nightstand before darting back into the bathroom. He was panting and wheezing as he dropped to his knees before his tub and tore his collar back from his throat.

"Damon, open the damn door!" He heard the rattling and banging as Elena tried to get in. He was impressed with how fast she had chased him back upstairs. Despite everything he was proud that he'd got a chance to know this girl. She had spunk; she had fire. He hoped to the bottom of his rotten heart that what he was about to do was enough to get her out of this house safely.

"Damon! Damon - let me in. Don't do this. Damon. I mean it. If you do this I'll never forgive you. Damn it! Let me in." Across his room the easy chair shifted an inch across the floor but remained blocking the door. The sound of fists and feet pounding against the wood increased in tempo along with the shouting. He knew that in another few minutes she'd have the door clear, even if she had to break it down.

"Goodbye Elena," he whispered too low for her to hear and shoved the point of the stake right through his jugular vein.

Unbelievable pain caused his jaws to drop open on a silent howl as he tipped forward, grasping the sides of his bathtub as he fumbled to pull the burning piece of wood out of his throat. Blood spouted, hitting the far side of the tub as he leaned into the bath as far as he could, choking and spitting on more blood. He had to do it again; he had to make sure the wound didn't close. Almost blind with the stunning pain he shoved the stake in and dragged the tip downward, ripping open his throat right to the bone. His own blood, hot and scalding, flooded the bathtub, staining the ceramic like rust water, gurgling and congealing around the drain. He vomited the dark blood coating his tongue and fought to keep upright so he bled into the tub and not all over the floor.

Again he punctured his throat, driving the wood so deep he felt it when the point hit his spine, and all the while he wished he could have figured out a way to hang himself upside down over the tub so he'd bleed out faster. He tried to climb into the tub, but couldn't make his legs move. Angry grey dots ate away his vision like an army of malevolent Pac-mans and he could only hope he didn't pass out before he bled out. His strength was failing him rapidly, massive blood loss doing the job of slow starvation in half the time and reducing his demigod physique to that of a withered husk in minutes.

"Damon!" Elena ran across the room, having wriggled through the door just like he'd known she would. Too weak to lift his head as the last half pint of blood dwindled out of his body he knew he had only seconds to finish the job before the stupid, beautiful girl undid all his hard work and tried to save him.

(She was always trying to save him. He wished that he'd had the courage to tell her not to when it still mattered. He wished he'd told her that the only person who could save him was him and he'd given up trying too many years ago to count.)

Numbly he clasped the Japanese lacquer handled knife in shrivelled fingers and drove it into his sternum, rooting for his heart even as the siren call of Elena's blood threatened to ruin everything. His failing hand pushed the blade upward, past wasting muscle and gristle. All he had to was stop his heart from beating. Heart and blood; that was the source of Amelie's power, always had been, if she was using him the way he thought she was then bleeding out and stopping his heart would stop her, at least long enough for Stefan to figure out a more permanent solution.

The knife found his heart, finally, puncturing the maligned organ like a wet balloon. The sensation of satisfaction he gained with that last fission of pain was glorious. His hands slipped from the knife still lodged in his chest and he slipped sideways to the floor, not quite gone but fading fast.

There was no more pain, just dissociate sensation. He could feel his veins deflating under his skin, his flesh desiccate and shrink around his bones. He'd stopped breathing because there was no way he could get oxygen to his lungs with a torn open throat. He was stone deaf and lost to touch; thoughts and awareness spiralled downward in ever decreasing circles towards oblivion. Finally his eyes dried up and sunk into the sockets before rolling up into his skull. It was then that Damon Salvatore checked out of the world of the living completely.

His last coherent thought as he went was that he was glad he'd finally hit on a plan that worked.


	22. Chapter 22

_A/N: Okay, so picture the scene. I'm desperately trying to write this chapter, with no clue what I'm going to do now that I've temporary written out my favourite character and muse, and just basically cursing my complete lack of foresight in doing that in the first place…and then Jeremy steps up to the plate and in one afternoon I have written five thousand words just like that. Therefore if any readers like this chapter at all, thank Jeremy Gilbert, because none of this would have been written if his fictional self wasn't living in my brain ;)_

* * *

_The eye of the beholder_

There was a moment while standing in Alaric Saltzman's wrecked apartment watching the drama unfold before him, where it seemed to Jeremy Gilbert that his life had descended into the deepest pit of melodrama and despair. Here he was standing in a room stinking of putrid blood and melted wax, surrounded by broken furniture, blood spattered walls and fallen candles beside his witch girlfriend, his sister, his sister's boyfriend the vampire, and his sister and his girlfriend's best friend – the newbie vamp. It was all so surreal. It was ludicrous. Jeremy felt like a bit-part player in a daytime soap – so long as that soap involved the occasional failed exorcism, vampires, and other weirdness.

All the same he could not tear his eyes away from what was happening. It was like a train wreck, or a multi-car accident on the freeway. It was wrong, horribly wrong, to just sit back and watch, but he couldn't help himself. It was mesmerising. It barely penetrated his mind, or conscience, that one of the principle performers in this prime slice of drama happened to be his own sister.

Not that Elena looked much like herself right now. Her hair was tangled, her face puffy and red, blood striped her cheeks like war paint carved into pink runnels by dried tear tracks. She was wearing her converse and a man's shirt, cinched in at the waist by a leather belt, and nothing else. Her eyes were too large in her face, wide and shocked, and yet there was this dangerous light in them, something wild and disturbing. She looked like a crazy person. She sounded crazy too.

Elena had eventually managed, after some corralling and judicious use of Ric's scotch, to spit out the whole story of what had gone down between her and Damon while they were stuck in the boarding house, and it was a real doozy too. Although Jeremy didn't believe he was the only person in the room completely _not surprised_ to hear that Damon was both insane enough, and so far gone on his sister, that he'd go down the self-mutilation and instant mummification road. Seriously, say what you like about the other Salvatore – and yeah crazy, murdering, psycho killer notwithstanding – but no one could claim that Damon Salvatore didn't have balls of freaking steel. Or that he didn't love Elena to hell and back.

"We have to go back for him Stefan." Elena was saying, hiccupping but beginning to calm down, her tears subsiding into a sort of dazed conviction. "We can't _leave_ him." Over and over Elena just kept repeating herself and even though she said 'we' it was kind of like the Queen of England might say 'we' but mean 'me'. She couldn't have made it more obvious if she'd been wearing a button on that shirt (Damon's shirt?) that said: _I'm team Damon, ask me how._

Looking between his sister and the vampire who was technically her boyfriend Jeremy was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who had noticed either. Man this was brutal. Elena was clutching at Stefan's sleeve, sort of plucking at the plaid fabric, but every time she opened her mouth she was talking Damon.

"We can't leave him like that. It…there was so much blood. He wouldn't listen to me. _How could he do this_? How could he…," Elena swallowed around a half-sob. She shook her head fiercely that wild light igniting behind her eyes once more. "It's not winning if he _dies_."

Jeremy sighed and spared a brief glance to the other two audience members in the room. Caroline's eyes were wide and round in her blood stained face and she stared between Stefan and Elena (but mostly Stefan) with the same sick intensity on her face that Jeremy felt. Bonnie, still standing in the ruins of her salt circle, watched Elena mostly, her expression both hard and sad all at once. Jeremy noticed that every time Elena spoke about Damon Bonnie's expression became harder and more remote. He shook his head. He knew where Bonnie was coming from, he got why she wasn't exactly in the running for president of the Damon fan club but what did she expect, really? Damon was Stefan's big brother and Elena's…well. His sister could talk a good game about only caring for Damon because she had to, or because he was Stefan's brother and he needed a friend, but what Elena said and what she did when it came to Damon were two entirely different things.

"Stefan _say_ something. Please." Elena's words snapped Jeremy out of his own thoughts and he tuned back into the drama once more. He watched Stefan as Elena finally started paying attention to the guy who was supposed to be her one true love. Of course _supposed to be_ didn't seem to hold much weight in this town. Jeremy thought that maybe Elena and Stefan were getting a crash course in that little life lesson right about now.

"Stefan...we can't leave him. You know that. He wouldn't leave you."

No one had ever told Jeremy the complete story about Damon and Stefan, but it was pretty obvious there was some seriously messed up, twisted, history between them and Jeremy had half suspected that the younger Salvatore would hi-five the air and whoop for joy to hear his brother was out of the picture.

He was pretty much dead wrong about that one.

Jeremy knew pain. He knew about heartache. Hell in the last year he'd been orphaned, experienced the grief of having two separate girlfriends die on him, not to mention his attempted suicide that had wound up dovetailing into his very own (very) temporary murder. He'd then had to deal with the gut-churning fear that an ancient, immensely powerful, vampire wanted to sacrifice his sister to break a curse he still didn't completely understand even now. In short Jeremy knew more about death and the terror that came from losing people than most kids his age. The look in Stefan's eyes right now however made everything Jeremy had ever felt, _ever_, seem shallow in comparison.

"We can fix this. _God_. We have to fix this. Stefan please; he needs you."

Desolation – that was the word. Watching Stefan as he looked at Elena, who would not shut up babbling about Damon this and Damon that, was an exercise in watching a man break into a million silent pieces. It was a sick and twisted work of art and Jeremy figured that when all this was over he was going to be ashamed of the fact that he had watched it all.

"Stefan?"

Not that knowing it was wrong was stopping him. Jeremy couldn't drag his eyes away from this…thing…that was happening between Stefan and Elena if his life depended on it. He wasn't even sure what it was exactly, but looking at his sister and Stefan was like watching two strangers try to act like they knew each other, and at the same time neither of them was really seeing the other at all. No, they were both looking for the person whose absence was a screaming siren through the silence.

"Stefan…?"

Jeremy watched the muscle pulse in Stefan's clenched jaw as Elena looked up at him quizzically. He watched the quivering skin around Stefan's eyes jump when Elena's hands, still covered in a flaking skein of Damon's blood, clutched at him. Mostly however Jeremy watched for stuff he shouldn't be able to see but still saw clear as day. Stefan Salvatore was becoming a wax work right in front of Jeremy's eyes. He wasn't moving, wasn't speaking. He wasn't even really looking at Elena or anything in the room. He was just standing there – metaphorically bleeding all over the floor.

Jeremy finally found the strength, or the basic decency, to look away. He nudged a broken beeswax candle lying on the floor with the toe of his sneaker and studied the patterns of blood decorating Ric's tired beige carpet like morbid starbursts. All the same, even without looking, he could feel the pull of pain and chaos pulsing through the room. If someone didn't do something pretty soon he was sure things were going to reach breaking point – if they hadn't already.

"Stefan?"

Jeremy wasn't the only one to jump a little when Caroline spoke and he looked up in surprise as she cautiously stepped up beside Stefan. He watched avidly as Caroline then subtly managed to edge into that no-man's land of distance between Elena and Stefan, filling the growing void with a fragile half-smile for Elena and eyes only for Stefan. Just like that Caroline was suddenly part of the drama and no longer just an audience member. Flicking back her hair, still covered in bits of witch blood, Caroline pushed back her shoulders and captured Stefan's opaque gaze.

"What are we going to do now?" She asked him and her voice rang with confidence – the confidence of someone who believed that Stefan was in a position to answer her.

Then Caroline deliberately, but with care, placed her hand on Stefan's arm, curling her fingers around his bicep in a move that should have been an echo of the way Elena had been clutching at Stefan but somehow wasn't anything at all like that. In doing so the blonde girl took that last half step into the breach and ended up standing directly in front of Stefan, blocking out Elena. Jeremy thought he heard his sister gasp softly in surprise even as she stepped back and let Caroline take a place that had been hers without question until now.

"Well?" Caroline continued sweet voice falsely light. "What's the plan? We have one right? Because seriously Stefan, this shirt was one of my favourites and that witch bitch needs to pay for throwing me against a wall." Caroline paused, waited, and then forged onward undaunted even when she received no response. "…And I guess it wouldn't be fair to leave Damon all shrivelled, so we need to fix that. Although, btw, he would _totally_ deserve it if we took some pictures of him all shrivel-y and, y'know, handed them out to all the women at the Grill next time he tries to do that 'eternal stud' thing he does."

Stefan, the undead mannequin, almost smiled. It was just the tiniest twitch of his lips but it was there and then so was Stefan, coming back to life and meeting Caroline's expectant gaze. "I…," Stefan's voice cracked, loud as a gunshot in the silence even if his voice was barely more than a whisper, "I have to go to my brother. I," he shook his head a quick agitated action. "…I need to see Damon."

"Great." Caroline's chipper-ness was excessive. She smiled like Stefan had just suggested a luxury vacation to Paris or Milan, not a retrieval mission to go get the desiccated husk of his vampire brother. "Let's go." Caroline tugged on Stefan's sleeve like an impatient child. "But can we stop by my house on the way? This cruddy blood makes my skin itch."

Stefan nodded jerkily but seemed more like himself as he let Caroline lead him towards the door to the apartment. They weren't holding hands but in that moment they might as well have been. Jeremy blinked after them and wondered how everything could have changed so much and yet, weirdly, make a hell of a lot more sense _now_ than it had weeks ago.

Caroline was already out of the door and Stefan was passing through the threshold when Bonnie spoke for the first time. "You can't revive him Stefan. You know that."

Stefan froze in the doorway, Caroline's expression fell, and Elena, who seemed to have fallen into a stupor as soon as Caroline had stepped forward, now turned around to stare at Bonnie like she'd never seen her before. Jeremy winced because he had a good idea of what was going to happen next – and it wouldn't be pretty.

"Bonnie…not now, okay?" He said softly willing his girlfriend to understand that now was so not the time to play this card. Bonnie ignored him and met Stefan's eyes as he turned around to look back at her.

"Amelie's spirit is tied to Damon. Bring him back and she comes back too. Damon was right to take himself out." Briefly Bonnie's eyes flicked to Elena and then away. Her mouth twisted as she said her next words, but she said them all the same. "He made the right choice, not just for Elena, but for all of us – there's too much at risk to just bring him back."

"He's my brother, Bonnie." Stefan's voice, hoarse and harsh, was nothing to the scorched and bridled anger in his eyes. Jeremy instinctively sidled up to his girlfriend when he caught just the periphery heat of that look. He knew why Bonnie was doing this, it was who and what she was, she always took the hard line even when it wasn't the popular one, and he respected her for that, but right now, she was walking a very _dangerous_ line and he wished she could see that sometimes being right wasn't enough.

"I know that," Bonnie nodded briskly remaining calm and steady even though she had to know that there was nothing calm or steady about Stefan right now. "I respect that, and even if you don't believe me, this isn't about my issues with Damon. I don't think he should be revived because I don't think he deserves to live – but this isn't about me. Damon made a _choice _Stefan. He made the choice to stop Amelie. I can respect him for that and you need to as well."

"Bonnie how can you _say_ that?" Elena burst out, taking a half step towards her friend before Bonnie's quelling gaze stopped her.

"I can say it because I'm not _blind_, Elena. I can say it because we fought Amelie, and she was more powerful than I am." Bonnie's hands curled into fists and she looked between Stefan and Elena. "Damon's…sacrifice took Amelie out. If we bring him back I'm not sure I'll be strong enough to get rid of her. People could die." Bonnie's gaze settled on Stefan. "I told you once were I stood. Damon's not the threat this time, but he's still part of the problem. His life is not worth the risk that innocent people could get hurt."

"Bonnie?" Elena looked like someone had just gut punched her, but Jeremy could also see anger building inside his sister and knew that she could be just as scary as any pissed off witch or vampire when she was really mad. Bonnie knew it too, if the grim but sad look on her face was any indication.

"Elena, I'm sorry, but this time you're not going to convince me to spare him."

"Spare him?" Elena's voice rose on a knife edge. "It's not your decision to make if he lives or dies Bonnie."

Bonnie shook her head grave but resolute. "I'm a Bennett, Elena, I'm a witch, if I don't try and protect this town who else will?" She met Elena's eyes with anger of her own.

Elena's eyebrows shot up her forehead and Jeremy knew that the shit was really going to hit the fan now. "You're not _god_ Bonnie. You're a witch…and so is Amelie. Amelie is as much _your_ responsibility as she is _Damon's_. You're talking about Amelie's victims – well Damon is one of them!" Elena hissed, that wild trapped fury unfurling around his sister like a physical thing. "Don't you dare start acting like you have the final say in protecting this town Bonnie Bennett –don't you even dare."

"Elena -I'm _not trying_ to play god." Bonnie sounded hurt. "You should understand what I'm saying. This is bigger than Damon. You were willing to die for all of us; you were willing to sacrifice your life for others. Could you live with yourself if we saved _him_ and people, good people, died?"

"Damon can help us fight Amelie." Elena insisted as intractable in her defence of the older Salvatore as Bonnie was in her arguments against him. "He's the only one who really knows what Amelie's capable of. Damn it Bonnie. Do you hate him so much you'd rather he suffer than work with him?"

"Uh," Jeremy looked from the empty apartment doorway to the two girls fighting and back again. He cleared his throat awkwardly not thrilled with the idea of drawing fire from both pissed off girls but figuring he didn't have a choice, "Um hey – where'd Stefan and Caroline go?"

* * *

Caroline shielded her eyes against the glare of the spring sunshine as she hurried to catch up with Stefan. They were both blurring along the back road leading out to the boarding house, stopping every so often when they heard a car approaching and ducking into the woods siding the road as the vehicle passed. Caroline had been chasing Stefan's back the whole way. Now she eyed him warily. She was worried about him but she wasn't sure what to say to make things better. She didn't think there was anything _to_ say. Things were pretty sucky right now and pretending they weren't wasn't going to fix anything. All the same Caroline Forbes wasn't exactly known for keeping silent.

"Are we going to give him blood?" She finally asked as they slowed their pace to human speed on the final approach to the boarding house. Above their heads a fat wood pigeon cooed on an over-hanging branch and the sunlight glowed through the leaves. It was a gorgeous day. One made for picnics in the park or working on an early tan, not racing along the roadside on a rescue mission.

"I don't know," Stefan lied and Caroline knew he did it but she let him off the hook because she was nice like that. Plus the way he was staring at that wood pigeon like he'd fry it with his laser beam eyes if he only had laser beam eyes was a good indication that she should tread carefully. Stefan had a lot of stuff to deal with and Caroline wouldn't be much of a friend if she poked at him with a big stick.

"Bonnie's right," Stefan continued reluctantly. "Amelie is too dangerous; we can't take the risk that she could come back and hurt people. We just don't know what she's capable of." Stefan's jaw pulsed as a big ugly-ass crow burst forth from a thicket of tangled branches and took wing across the powder blue sky. He watched the bird as it cawed loudly and shot off in the direction of the boarding house.

"I just…_I don't care_." Stefan turned around suddenly grasping Caroline's elbows, surprising them both. "I don't _care_ Caroline. I don't care that Bonnie's right. I _should_ play this smart. Damon…Damon's not dead. He can survive as he is indefinitely…but all I can think about is that he stopped his own heart and bled out so Elena would be safe." Stefan shook his head. "And I…I can't just _leave_ him like that."

Caroline shrugged as lightly and delicately as she could while Stefan still clutched her arms. "He's family." She said gently. "I get that."

"Do you?" Stefan let go of her and turned away, pacing a few feet before returning. "I don't." He skewered Caroline with his eyes. "I tried to do this to Damon once. Starve him. Turn him into a mummy. I was going to keep him locked up in the family vault for fifty years. _Me_, Caroline, I was going to do that to my own brother because I thought it was the right call."

"I'm pretty sure everyone who has ever met Damon has wanted to lock him up and throw away the key, Stefan." Caroline pointed out. "Damon's a jerk and he probably deserved whatever you did to him."

"It was you," Stefan's expression quirked, almost amused – or maybe bemused. "I slipped you vervain at the Founder's party and when he bit you it took him out. I locked him up in the basement and kept him dosed up and unfed for four days before he escaped."

"Oh," Caroline's eyes widened, half-memories flitting through her head of Damon in the basement cell, and another guy trying to stop her opening the door, and then being chased out of the house and knowing she'd die if he caught her. "Well then he definitely deserved it." She said with complete conviction before softening as she watched Stefan struggle with himself. "But he doesn't deserve it this time."

Stefan had stopped pacing and was watching her with this look on his face that Caroline didn't have a name for. She felt acutely uncomfortable as the scrutiny continued and the fat wood pigeon above their heads kept on cooing away. "What?" She asked finally.

"Why are you here Caroline?" Stefan asked her gently. "After everything Damon did to you, why would you want to help him?"

Caroline blinked at Stefan in total surprise and then, feeling more than a little annoyed, she stepped forward and smacked him on the arm - _hard_. "You moron, I'm not doing this for _Damon_. I'm here for _you_, because I like you and you're my friend - and not just because you hang out with Elena – but because I actually _like_ you, Stefan. And, in case you hadn't realised, this is the sort of thing friends do for one another." She took a quick breath, ready to continue her tirade but then she saw the smile on Stefan's face, crooked and wry, and stopped, abruptly embarrassed.

"Thank you." He said.

Caroline frowned, "For what?"

Stefan shook his head gently, still smiling just a little. "For being you, Caroline, and for being here."

Overhead the wood pigeon finally shut up, but Caroline didn't notice because soft diffuse warmth was slowly rolling outward from her chest to every part of her being. The radiant smile that graced her face as she and Stefan started off again for the boarding house gave the bright spring sunshine a run for its money.

* * *

"Hey," Jeremy spoke up as he approached Elena as she sat on the low wall running around Ric's apartment building parking lot, staring into space. She had changed into a pair of Ric's sweat pants (rolled up at the ankles and draw-string drawn as tight as it could go) but still wore the man's shirt she'd been wearing when they found her. She'd combed her hair and washed her face but still looked like a shell-shocked disaster victim, which, Jeremy figured, wasn't too far off point.

"Hey," Elena lifted her head to look at Jeremy and struggled to give him a wane smile. "How's Bonnie?"

"Pretty mad," Jeremy admitted rolling his eyes and sitting on the wall next to his sister. "You know how she gets about Damon. She just…it's hard for her, you know? Because sometimes she feels like she's losing you to the Salvatores and it scares her."

Elena just nodded glumly, not bothering to deny that if there was a side to take she would stand with the brothers. Instead she cradled her chin in the palms of her hands and watched tiny scurrying ants' criss-cross the concrete under their feet.

"What about you, Jer?" Elena said lifting her head again to look at him and Jeremy thought there was something scared and a little desperate in her eyes. "What do you think? I mean Damon…he… he _killed_ you. Do you want him gone too?"

Jeremy studied his sister then, for a long moment. Backlit by the sun her face was shadowed and for the first time Jeremy realised that he and Elena had never really discussed Damon –or what Damon had done to him. He smiled faintly and shook his head.

"No I don't. I mean I get where Bonnie's coming from. Amelie is seriously disturbing and bringing her back before we have a way to get rid of her for real is just…yeah, it's dumb. But I don't have an issue with bringing Damon back because he's Damon."

Elena's expression rippled with confusion and surprise and her lips parted; no doubt to remind Jeremy yet again that Damon had killed him and he should be mad about that, or whatever. Not wanting to hear it Jeremy held up a hand to stop her before she could start.

"Look, I know that, yeah, technically Damon killed me. But it was so fast. It mostly just felt like he'd knocked me out. He grabbed me, slammed me into the wall, and then – nothing – until I woke up with you holding me and crying." He looked at Elena and tried to make her understand where he was coming from.

"I think the whole thing was worse for you than me. I didn't even know I was dead – and I didn't stay that way. So it was – it was just a bad experience with a vampire - and I've had _those_ before." He smirked. "Don't forget Vicki would have eaten me if you hadn't stopped her and Anna tried to feed me to her mom." He shrugged. "I'm not an idiot. Hanging out with vampires isn't safe Elena, but I'm a big boy and I can handle the risk." He held up his hand with the Gilbert ring. "This helps, but I know there aren't any sure bets. Damon killed me, but I'm pretty damn sure he won't do it again, so we're cool."

Elena's expression would have been funny if Jeremy had felt even remotely like laughing. She looked like someone had slapped her with a wet fish – just completely surprised and unable to comprehend Jeremy's point of view – but at the same time Jeremy knew Elena well enough to see the wheels turning behind her eyes. Casually Jeremy looked out across the mostly empty parking lot, drenched in sunlight, and let Elena think. He figured she had a heck of a lot to think about.

"Everything is so complicated," she whispered softly as both Gilberts sat side by side and looked into the spill of sunlight painting the parking lot in golden light.

"Yeah well, when has that been news?" Jeremy nudged his sister gently in the ribs. She turned, glared at him, and elbowed him back.

"I'm serious Jer," Huffing a breath Elena pouted. "I miss Elijah and Klaus – and the werewolves. They weren't complicated. The curse wasn't complicated. I knew I'd either die or I wouldn't. It was simple. This…this is so complicated and I don't know what to do."

Jeremy glanced at her sideways and rolled his eyes. "Elena, c'mon, I'm your brother. Don't drag me into your sordid love life."

Elena didn't even crack a smile. She just gazed down at the ant infested concrete looking lost. "I hurt him…Stefan. I didn't mean to, but I did. I hurt him because of Damon."

Elena looked up at Jeremy and the panic was clear in her eyes. "And Damon…Damon hurt himself for my sake. I don't know how to fix that, Jeremy. I don't know how to fix any of it."

Jeremy sighed and, awkwardly, slung an arm around Elena's shoulders pulling her into his side. "Elena, you're my big sister and I know you have this need to try and fix everything when people aren't happy…but as your brother I think it's my duty to tell you that you're not god either. You can't fix people. Life doesn't work like that. Yeah Stefan wasn't happy that you were all broken up over his brother, or that Damon had, y'know, almost offed himself for you. But so what? Shit happens. The dude's got to learn to deal."

"You don't understand," Elena pulled away from Jeremy shoving her hair back from her face. "I promised Stefan that it would be me and him forever, and then I promised Damon I would help him." She looked at Jeremy. "I'm afraid Jer; I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to keep both promises."

Jeremy stood up from the wall. He was uncomfortable with this conversation and not just because he wasn't used to giving his sister advice, or having her ask him for any. He was uncomfortable because as far as he was concerned it was pretty damned obvious where Elena's heart lay and he didn't want to say anything because if Elena didn't want to see it she wouldn't. On the other hand he couldn't just leave her like this, because he could tell that the last thirty-odd hours had ripped her open inside and left her raw and bleeding.

"Look Elena, I'm not an expert okay." He began awkwardly, voice brusque because giving his sister advice on her love life was just too weird. "But I think that someone who loves you wouldn't hold you to a promise that makes you miserable. They'd understand if you're not perfect. Hell, the person who really loves you would never expect you to ever _be_ perfect. They'd just…they'd just want you to be happy because _you_ are the person they love and they don't need anything more than that."

When Elena didn't say anything in response Jeremy shook his head and started to walk back to the door to the apartment building but stopped and looked over his shoulder to his sister one final time.

"None of this is complicated Elena. It really isn't. You _know_ you love him. Just accept it and move on, because if you keep lying to yourself you'll break a whole lot more than some stupid promises."


	23. Chapter 23

_Resurgence_

Arnold Winkler had been a keen angler since he was twelve years old. For forty years he'd been fishing from this same spot just a mile south of the falls and he still loved this time, when it was just him, the river, and the birds in the trees. Fixing another line Arnold hummed under his breath, tuneless but content. He was getting some interested nibbles but so far had yet to land a fish – not that this mattered to Arnold. He always joked that catching fish was the last reason a guy should go fishing. It was all about the solitude for Arnold. The simple repetition of casting a line, reeling it in, and re-casting was something magical that transported him from his troubles to a better, happier, place.

He was just settling into that happy place of contemplative brainlessness when he spotted the body floating down stream. It was moving swiftly because the river currents were strong this close to the falls. At first Arnold thought it was a large garbage bag, then he realised that garbage bags didn't have arms and legs.

"Well I'll be…" jumping up from his perch on the river bank Arnold stood stock still, not sure what to do as the body -a man face down in the water- bobbed right past him and became tangled in a thick mess of river weed and reeds about twenty yards further down. Running in his waders Arnold grabbed his fishing pole and went over.

The body in the water wore a dark suit jacket and matching slacks but had lost one shoe. His thinning hair, some indeterminate shade between light brown and muddy blond, fluttered like the short arms of a sea anemone in the water. Arnold licked his lips and extended his pole, prodding at the body. He thought the man was dead, maybe a suicide that decided to die by throwing himself over the falls - Arnold had known it to happen before - but he had to make sure. When the body didn't react to his prodding Arnold waded into the reeds to drag the poor bastard out. It was the family he always felt sorry for under these circumstances. He just did not understand suicides, sure life could get you down sometimes, but how was killing yourself an answer? It was just crazy to Arnold. Most of the time these sad-sacks just needed to get a decent hobby – like fishing. Life was always better when fishing was involved.

Arnold was thigh deep in the water when the dead man surged upward, grabbed him around the neck, and shoved him under.

* * *

_None of this is complicated Elena. It really isn't. You _know_ you love him. Just accept it and move on, because if you keep lying to yourself you'll break a whole lot more than some stupid promises._

The morning sun was warm on Elena's back as she sat on the low wall wrapping around Alaric's apartment building parking lot but she was barely aware of it; Jeremy's parting words to her kept repeating in her mind like a broken record, and no matter what she couldn't drown them out.

_You know you love him_.

She wanted, desperately, to believe that Jeremy meant Stefan but she knew he didn't. Elena had already accepted and embraced her love for Stefan after all. She wasn't lying about that either. No, there was only one person Jeremy could possibly mean and even thinking these thoughts scared Elena on some deep, primitive level. It felt like standing on the edge of a precipice, or some imaginary windswept cliff, looking down at the jagged rocks and raging surf below. There was this sensation of vertigo that both terrified and exhilarated her. She was afraid of falling. She was afraid of how good it might feel to let herself sink below the surface of that wild and unknowable ocean. She was afraid of letting go, casting aside logic and caution, and just diving head first into the depth of feeling she knew was there.

_None of this is complicated._

Elena shivered despite the warmth of the sun. The thing that scared her most wasn't really anything to do with Damon and his multitude of attendant issues. Instead it was all about her – Elena Gilbert - and the person she thought she wanted to be versus the person she thought she might really be. The girl she wanted to be, the girl she liked to think she was, would never have these kinds of thoughts. She would look into those deep, angry, churning waters and see only death, destruction, pain. She wouldn't want to go anywhere near the water's edge. She would be afraid of drowning. Yet the part of Elena with the strength and basic integrity to recognise at least some truth in Jeremy's words, refused to let her cling to old illusions. The _real_ Elena knew that she'd jumped a long time ago and she'd been fighting the undertow ever since. She'd made certain choices, to forgive if not forget, even when she wanted to deny that was exactly what she was doing. She'd clung on when she said she'd let go forever, she'd pushed when she shouldn't, and she'd spent weeks holding her breath and fighting the tide because she needed a reason, an _excuse_, to either sink or swim.

_Move on_.

She shook her head fiercely and flexed her fingers. Earlier she'd scrubbed her hands in the sink in Alaric's apartment until her skin was pink and tingling and still she couldn't shake off the feeling of Damon's blood all over her palms. She'd seen people die before, hell, she'd watched Elijah rip Rose's friend Trevor's head off – yet it still horrified her just how much blood could pump out of the human body, or a vampire's body for that matter. The smell and feel of Damon's blood clinging to her skin haunted her.

_You'll break more than stupid promises. _

Every time she closed her eyes Elena saw Damon on the floor of his bathroom, shrunken and grey, hideous in the throes of something so much worse than death. It was funny in a sick, twisted sort of way, but she had never been particularly moved by Damon's obvious physical beauty before. He was hot, yes, but he knew it, and the pretty package didn't distract Elena from what went on below the surface. It had _never_ distracted her from the person Damon was underneath, and that person was more than his looks. All the same, seeing him reduced to a desiccated husk ripped her to pieces. She thought that she would give a great deal, maybe more than she should ever want to give up, to see Damon swagger around the corner of Alaric's apartment building right this moment, his fuck-me-now smirk firmly in place and stream-lined abs on display for the world to see.

_Stop lying._

Jerking her gaze away Elena realised to her chagrin that she'd actually been looking across the car lot as if Damon really was going to appear, miraculously, right in front of her. Jittery, nervous anger zinged through her blood stream. She should have gone with Stefan. She should never have left Damon's side. She should have figured out some way of stopping him before he hurt himself in the first place.

_Life isn't some paint by numbers fantasy. _

The echo of Damon's voice mocked her and made her feel like a traitor, worse even than Katherine. The fact that she didn't know which Salvatore she had betrayed more, or which one she owed the most to in the first place, only made her even more of a traitor to both of them.

There was only one thing Elena did know, and that was that she couldn't hide any longer and she couldn't mope. They needed her, Stefan and Damon both, and she might have let them down but she wouldn't abandon either of them. Getting up from the wall Elena promised herself that once they had Damon back safe and well she would deal with her feelings for both brothers once and for all. First though she needed to make sure everyone she cared about was safe. She set off across the car lot, intent on getting in her car and driving right out to the boarding house.

She didn't even make it to her car before something hit her from behind and the lights went out.

* * *

D'Ann Payter was just passing through Mystic Falls on her way to Richmond. She'd pulled off the main freeway to fill up with gas along the Old Fell's Road skirting the outer reaches of the town. Pulling into the gas station she notied with amusement that the whole thing looked like a refugee from the cliché '50's.

Parking up by the pump D'Ann's mind was on a hundred and one things all at once. She was thinking about the shopping spree she had planned that would burn a hole in Jerry's bank account. She was thinking about the _reason_ she was so set on melting his Visa to slag, namely the secret phone calls Jerry always looked guilty about taking. She was worried that after ten years her marriage was effectively over. She was afraid about what that meant and whether she had the courage to be the one to end things. Did she have the strength to be the first to admit that the fairytale was over and whatever they had said at seventeen, life didn't just stop because they had wanted to freeze-frame a feeling. Forever is not a promise, it's a jail sentence D'Ann thought a split second before her nose wrinkled in distaste.

The reek of something rotted and over-ripe like spilled garbage assailed her senses and D'Ann turned around, still standing by the gas pump. A few feet behind her, standing in the bright sunlight, was a man in an old filthy army issue jacket. He had a scraggy beard and tattered slacks and the stench of rot was coming from him. D'Ann tensed, eyes flicking from the man staring at her to the windows of the gas station store. She could see the young station attendant through the window, bobbing his head to whatever was playing on his Ipod.

"I've got mace," she told the filthy hobo warningly inching closer to her car door. She'd drive away without paying if she had to. "Don't try anything okay?" The stinking derelict just stared at her, the smell emanating from his body the most 'alive' thing about him. D'Ann shivered, she couldn't put her finger on it but there was something very, very, wrong about this man – something more than his basic scuzziness. Once again she flicked her eyes from the man to the gas station store and then, driven by some instinct she didn't have time to analyse, she broke into a run straight for the store.

A cheerful tinkling bell jangled over head as she wrenched open the single, non-automatic, door to the store and D'Ann slammed it closed staring with wide eyes at the man outside. He had turned around to stare back at her but other than that had not moved.

"Jeez Louise," D'Ann backed away from the door and skittered down past an aisle of chips and dips to the cash register. The attendant was gone. D'Ann rocked to a halt on her heels. Her nose was still clogged with the foul odour of the man outside and so for just a split second she assumed the thick copper tang in the air was just left over sensory memory from that.

"Hello…anyone there? I could use some help. There's some weirdo hanging around on the forecourt."

Stepping up to the pay desk D'Ann thought she could hear the tinny echo of music, or something passing for music, in the air. The sound was tiny and scratchy as if coming out from ear-bud headphones. On the cashier desk someone had knocked over a display of cheap souvenirs and bobble-head pens and state flag pins had scattered across the floor. D'Ann leaned over the counter.

She found the attendant lying on the linoleum on the other side of the cash desk.

He was on his back, acne scarred face caught in a grimace of complete surprise and mouth fallen open. His arms stretched out away from his body and spider-leg trails of blood had begun to crawl out from under him. His white uniform shirt was crimson shading to black with blood, centred upon his chest where a hole in the button down fabric had erupted in gore. There were tell-tale starbursts of blood spatter dancing away past the open storeroom door just behind the counter and the raw reek of offal and blood breathed out from beyond the gloom. D'Ann thought she heard something move within the room – the scrap-shuffle of feet dragging over rough floor.

"Oh…God," She reeled backward, stumbling on her kitten heels. She blinked angry orange and black spots away from her eyes as her pulse roared in her ears. The dim silhouette of a boy in a baseball cap appeared in the storeroom door way. The boy in the hat was holding something cradled in his palms, almost reverently, something small and dripping.

"Moooooorrreeee." He yowled, sounding like a strangled cat, "Need. More."

D'Ann back away, holding her hands out before her as if to ward him off. Behind her the bright and cheery tinkling of the bell above the main door crashed through the charged atmosphere. D'Ann spun around as the old hobo from the pumping forecourt stood in the doorway framed by sunlight, blocking her only means of escape.

"More. Need. More."

D'Ann screamed.

* * *

"Patrol six this is Sheriff Forbes, I'm on Fourth now, headed south towards Old Fell's Road -what's the situation?"

Alaric had never ridden in a police car before (well except for that time in college with the handcuffs, the lamppost, and the edible thong - but he wasn't about to relive a moment of that humiliation). All the same, ten minutes into the ride, and Alaric thought he could have lived without this particular experience. He braced himself against the car door as the Sheriff took another turn like Steve McQueen in Bullett.

"Sheriff, this is Hanson. We've got two confirmed dead here. We think they're the homeowners, a Mr and Mrs Spruegen, both in their seventies. Looks like the intruder smashed through the patio doors and caught the victims while they were eating lunch. It was messy. We've got blood everywhere."

"Damn it," the Sheriff swerved around a SUV, sirens blaring. "Do we know the cause of death?"

"The tech guys aren't here yet…but _whatever_ killed them, they're both missing their hearts."

Sheriff Forbes cursed under her breath, a stronger epithet than before, and Alaric spared her a glance. Missing hearts seemed to be theme for the day so far. Since Deputy Dawkins had been attacked around dawn there had been three other fatalities, two at a gas station near the county line, and a man out fishing by the falls. In both incidents the victims were found missing their hearts. Even by the rather grizzly standards of Mystic Falls this had been a very busy, not to mention fatal, Sunday morning.

"I'll be there in two minutes, Hanson." The Sheriff cut off the line on her radio and turned to Alaric, still pushing her squad car to limits that even in the light Sunday traffic seemed death defying.

"Are they multiplying?" She demanded.

Ric sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose wishing for either a double brandy or a one-way ticket to anywhere but here. "It's beginning to look that way." He admitted. "The dead girl in the cell – Chrissy? – said she 'needed more'. Whatever else these things are up to, collecting hearts seems pretty high on the agenda."

Liz Forbes sucked in a sharp breath, her cheeks turning concave and gaunt, outlining the sharp lines of her skull. "There were over a dozen original victims, if we include those that were reported missing with the confirmed dead. The cause of death varied with the original victims but each body had been mutilated just like our victims. The hearts were always removed."

"Which is probably linked to the whole zombie angle, as we know Chrissy was missing hers." Alaric tried to sound at least a little like he knew what he was talking about. "Dawkins was attacked by at least three of those things, right?" He waited for the Sheriff to nod. "So. If we assume that there are maybe twelve original zombies in town and that they're attacking in pairs or groups of three then…"

"Then we have four separate groups of these things out there right now." The sheriff turned onto the Old Fell's Road, the main thoroughfare that led in and out of town, which was also the road leading out to the boarding house and to the ruins of the original town of Fell's Church. "They've killed five people so far including the Spruegens. If we don't find them and stop them soon the death toll could rise even higher."

"Yeah," Alaric grimaced, trying to stop his mind from replaying choice scenes from every zombie movie he'd ever seen. Unsurprisingly the notion of a zombie endemic hitting Mystic Falls was not hard to imagine. Alaric wondered if there happened to be any hardware or DIY stores open on a Sunday around town. He was thinking of purchasing a new chainsaw. It might come in handy fairly soon.

Sheriff Forbes pulled her squad car up onto the curb beside a simple wood faced house with a wraparound porch that looked not a million miles dissimilar to the Gilbert House. Yellow police tape had already been strung up like Christmas garlands around the small front yard and three or four squad cars, lights still turning blue and red, filled the drive and surrounding curb side. Alaric wondered at himself that the realisation that he was about to walk in on a murder scene didn't faze him at all. He concluded that he had simply lived in Mystic Falls too damn long. He wondered if mentioning he was just a high school history teacher would do any good. He'd signed up to kill one single vampire, (and yeah the fact that said vampire was now his friend was a problem for another day) but he hadn't made any commitment to battle all and sundry undead nasties.

"I need to go in there." Liz turned to him, releasing her seat belt and placing one hand on the door handle. "I can't justify taking you in with me." Alaric tried not to let his relief show through too much as he nodded. "Is there anything you can think of that I can look out for at the scene?" Liz pressed. "Vampires I can handle…this is something else entirely." She shook her head. "These things don't even need an invitation to get in."

"Secure the bodies." Alaric had been thinking about this. "If we're right and these killings are all to increase the numbers of undead shambling around then we have to make sure the victims can't get up and become part of the overall problem."

"Easier said than done," Sheriff Forbes shook her head. "The medical examiner is going to have some questions if I don't release the bodies for autopsy, especially in an obvious homicide case. Believe me, as distasteful as it may seem for the family, if it was up to me I'd send the bodies straight to the incinerator. It's what we do with vampires."

"Can't you just blame this on vampires – surely the medical examiner knows about them? In this town they'd have to an idiot not to notice the difference between the average mountain lion mauling and the bite of vampire."

"I can try," Liz conceded, "but Carlson usually likes to see the vics' even when it's obvious it was a vampire. As soon as he sees these victims he's going to know it's not vampires. Whatever else these things are doing, they aren't biting the victims –and they're not interested in the blood."

Alaric nodded distractedly. He'd been thinking ahead as the Sheriff spoke. He hadn't heard anything from Stefan or the others since he'd left to answer the Sheriff's initial call. Bonnie had been planning to summon Amelie's ghost to her and Alaric was willing to go out on a limb and assume that the spell had back fired. It was one explanation for why Mystic Falls was starting to resemble the backdrop of an Evil Dead movie.

"I'll wait here while you go in." He said aloud holding up his cell phone. "I'm going to make a call. See if I can get some answers that can help us." And find out what had happened to Stefan, Bonnie, and the others, he added silently.

"Are you going to try and call Damon?" Liz's attention instantly sharpened and Alaric winced, realising his mistake. Liz wasn't going to want to go if she thought he was calling Damon. Frankly for a sheriff her dependency on Damon was a little worrying – hell – it would be worrying even if she wasn't the face of law and order in this town.

"Er, no," Alaric thought swiftly. "I have some contacts – out of town – they know some things about the occult. They helped me out when I first started looking into the vampire angle after Isobel disappeared. No guarantees but they might have heard stories about zombies that can help us."

The sheriff thought about this for moment, obviously somewhat suspicious about these so-called occult informants, but then she let her shoulders drop and nodded, once, in sharp agreement. "We're out of options. If it keeps the body count down I'm willing to take advice from almost anyone." She admitted grimly. Getting out of the squad car Liz hesitated before shutting the door and leaned down to speak with Alaric. "See what you can find out. I'm going to make sure the Spruegens' don't get back up again."

* * *

"No Dad, I said I was staying at Elena's last night." Bonnie bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to keep her patience. She was feeling guilty and uncertain and that always made her cranky. She half listened to her dad chew her out on the other end of the line, interrupting the flow of complaint when she could get a word in edge ways. "I don't know what caused the fire. I heard about it this morning. Yes Dad. The fire chief said it was localised to the breakfast room. The rest of the house is okay."

Bonnie's teeth scraped over the soft flesh of her inside lip, drawing blood. She knew her dad had every reason to be mad. In fact he had more reason than he thought he did seeing as she was the one who had caused the fire that had, nearly, destroyed the entire ground floor of their house, but right now she had bigger things to worry about. "Yes Dad." She insisted, resisting the urge to squirm in discomfort. "I'm fine – really. I'm perfectly fine. The house…it's not great but we can fix it. It's really not that bad."

She paused and listened silently as her dad wound down from his rant. He told her he was getting a late afternoon flight back home and that he'd be back sometime this evening. Bonnie wanted to tell him to stay in Chicago, or as far from Mystic Falls as he could get but she couldn't for the life of her think of a good excuse why, so she bit her tongue and simply accepted that there were some things she couldn't change.

"I love you too dad. See you later. Bye."

Bonnie sighed as she hung up, sinking back into Alaric's stained, but still usable, couch. She and Jeremy had tried to straighten out Alaric's apartment while Elena sulked outside and Stefan and Caroline went to do – whatever – with Damon, but the place still looked like the backdrop of a small massacre. She was just about to grab the vacuum cleaner and give the carpets another go over when Jeremy came back into the apartment. Bonnie's shoulders hunched. One of the big issues about dating her best friend's brother was the fact that when she fought with her best friend she couldn't guarantee her boyfriend would support her and not his sister. Truthfully Bonnie wasn't sure she _needed_ Jeremy's support, she was kind of used to being the lone voice of sanity when it came to Damon – especially in Elena's case – but it would be nice, all the same, if Jeremy at least had her back.

"Did you speak to Elena?" She asked him not turning around as she searched out the vacuum.

"Yeah," Jeremy heaved a deep sigh and then walked over to her, beginning to rub out the tension in her shoulders. Bonnie stiffened momentarily and then relaxed, leaning into him. "Let's not fight okay?" Jeremy asked tiredly still massaging her shoulders. "You're right about Amelie, but you can't expect Stefan to just sit back and let his brother rot. I know I wouldn't if it was Elena."

"Elena's different." Bonnie stepped away from Jeremy's soothing hands and turned to face him. "She's not a homicidal jackass."

"Point," Jeremy's smirk was crooked as he moved in to kiss her. Bonnie gave herself over to the kiss without any protest and only pulled away when the apartment phone rang startling them both. Jeremy reached the phone on the wall first and answered it cautiously.

"Hey Mister Saltzman," he said much more cheerfully when the caller identified himself. He listened attentively to what the older man had to say. "Um, yeah, that whole summoning Amelie thing kinda…well, no, it _worked,_ it just had unexpected consequences." Jeremy listened some more, eyes going wide when Alaric finished. Bonnie, eavesdropping from across the room, gave trying to get Alaric's antiquated vacuum to work and came over so she could hear more of the conversation.

"Shit, seriously? The zombies are back? But I thought…" Jeremy looked at Bonnie who stared back at him impatient to know the whole story. "Wow. This could be bad. No, Stefan's gone to get Damon. What? Oh right, long story. Basically Elena's out and safe but Damon's…Damon's not so safe. Nah he's not dead, he's just kinda…a mummy."

Jeremy paused while Alaric uttered a few choice expletives Jeremy himself would be given detention for using in class. "Yeah, this is just getting crazy. Sure I'll tell them." Jeremy nodded even though Alaric couldn't see him. "We'll call you if we find out anything." Jeremy hung up and turned to Bonnie.

"I think we're going to need to get more of your family's spell books." He said quietly. "There's got to be an anti-zombie spell in there somewhere right?"

Bonnie felt that knot of guilt and uncertainty inside her gut tighten even more. Her stomach twisted painfully and she shoved down her anxiety by force of will alone. "Amelie's gone." She insisted. "She was tied to Damon. Stefan couldn't have revived Damon this quickly. It's not possible the zombies are back."

Jeremy sighed and shook his head rubbing his hands gently down her arms. "Bonnie. The zombies aren't back. _They never went away_." Although carefully neutral his tone was firm. "We were wrong. Damon really _isn't_ the problem. We've got to move on and deal with the real threat, okay?"

Bonnie closed her eyes and choked back a surge of contrary anger while swallowing hard. "I have to go home anyway." She admitted grudgingly. "My Dad's coming back tonight. The rest of the grimoires in the attic might help." She opened her eyes and steeled herself moving towards the door resolutely. "Let's go."

She threw open the door to Alaric's apartment just in time to receive a two by four to the side of the head. She fell like a ton of bricks, unconscious before she hit the floor.

"Bonnie!" Jeremy was too surprised at first to react as his girlfriend hit the floor. Then his gaze locked with the unfamiliar zombie standing in the doorway.

"You. Are. Next." The zombie growled, hefting the plank of wood and stepping over Bonnie. Jeremy took a hasty step back, looking around for a weapon. The zombie lunged forward, almost too fast to credit, swinging the plank of wood straight at Jeremy's head.


	24. Chapter 24

_A/N: Warning for further confusing developments and explicitly descriptive gore in this chapter (I grossed myself out a bit so take heed if reading this while eating or just not fond of gross stuff) ;) Also if anyone is confused about the flashback in this chapter, consider this a missing continuation scene from the one in chpt 13._

* * *

_Forewarned is forearmed _

"Stefan, hurry up." Caroline yelled as she picked up a red painted metal tool box and swung it at the head of a Hispanic zombie with a shaved scalp. The heavy box caved in the side of the dead man's skull, and the force with which Caroline had swung it sent the zombie bouncing backwards across the oil stained concrete of the boarding house garage. There was another zombie pinned to the wall by a tire iron embedded in the cinderblock (courtesy of Stefan in a very pissy mood). The fat, bald, middle aged corpse kept trying to wriggle off the end of the iron and away from the wall but so far couldn't get free. Caroline tried not to think too hard on just how gross the whole thing was.

Darting forward she brought the tool box crashing down on the fallen zombie's face again and again until his skull was sticky splatter spreading like egg yolk over the floor. The zombie's arms flailed, hands clawing at her, but Caroline was getting better at handling these things now and, moving fast, she used the tool box to crush the man's knee caps before leaping away. Stopping a zombie dead – pun intended – was a pain in the ass, but incapacitating them was easier. If they couldn't walk or see where they were going they were pretty useless against a vampire with super speed.

Still Caroline could think of a hundred and one things she'd sooner be doing on a Sunday than mutilating walking corpses, not to mention she was seriously worried about the state of her manicure. Dashing to the door to the garage she poked her head out and called back through the rest of the house.

"Stefan, come _on_!"

How long did it take him to go fetch his shrivelled brother? It wasn't like Damon was in any condition to be his usual jerk-ish self. It was totally unfair that she had to stay here with the car and the zombies while Stefan did –whatever – with his mummified brother. She was just thinking of going looking for him when Stefan appeared right in front of her.

"Ahhh!" Caroline jumped. "God don't do that." She snapped falling back a step as Stefan brushed by her to the car, carrying a very still, sheet covered body over one shoulder and holding a flamethrower in the other hand. Without a word Stefan popped the trunk of his flashy sports car, dumped the flamethrower on the floor, and carefully lowered Damon's body into the trunk. Caroline watched the way he made sure the white sheet covered every part of the body from tip to toe and how fastidious he was in making sure all Damon's limbs were straight and secure inside the trunk before he closed the top.

"There was another zombie in the house. It was trying to drag Damon outside." Stefan told her in clipped tones picking up the flamethrower. "He doesn't have his ring. He would have burned." Hefting the flamethrower Stefan walked over to the crippled zombie on the ground, grabbed hold of it by the filthy tatters of its formerly red t-shirt, and dragged it over to the garage doors. "These things were after Damon. Let's see how _they_ like burning in the sun."

Caroline hit the button on the wall to raise the roll up doors without really thinking as Stefan hauled the writhing corpse out onto the drive and kicked his foot right through the man's chest. The wet cracking sound made Caroline jump and her mouth go dry. Savagely kicking the corpse off his foot Stefan opened the nozzle on the flamethrower and flambed the zombie right there on his driveway. The sickly sweet scent of burning flesh hit Caroline like a slap to the face and she flinched backward, stomach roiling. Her foot scraped across the concrete of the garage floor and Stefan's head turned towards her, his expression closed and blank in a way that flat out scared her.

"Get the other one." He nodded to the skewered zombie still wriggling against the wall.

Caroline was having trouble taking her eyes off the roasting corpse trying to claw his way across the gravel while still very much on fire. "What?" She whispered not sure what she was asking. She blinked rapidly and tried to tear her gaze away from the hideous sight.

Stefan blurred back into the garage ignoring Caroline and grabbed the zombie from the wall. He didn't bother to pull the tire iron free of the wall or the zombie first. Instead he just wrenched the zombie's body from the wall so that the tire iron tore a hole right through his upper chest and left shoulder.

Caroline clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back a gasp. She was a vampire, she'd eaten people, been shot and had to dig the bullets out of her own skull. She'd been tortured and seen violence that would make the developers of a Grand Theft Auto game green around the gills, but there was something way, way more disturbing about watching _Stefan_ casually brutalise someone, even an already dead someone, that made her feel like she'd entered some evil bizarro world.

Stefan's words to her, spoken in a dull monotone as he dragged the oozing zombie outside did not reassure her at all. "This is ends - _now._"

* * *

September 19th 1900:

The vampire watched with vague curiosity from his comfortable lounging spot on the bed as Ambrose fiddled about with his witchy paraphernalia, occasionally rubbing at his neck where the vampire had bitten him a half hour previous. The infusion of his own blood he'd given the warlock had healed the bite to the point of a benign bruise; the sort an amorous lover might leave on the soft lily white flesh of their sweetheart's throat. The thought amused the vampire, especially coupled with Ambrose' obvious discomfort about the blood exchange. Smirking lazily the vampire took a sip from his glass of whiskey, washing away the last lingering aftertaste of the warlock's blood with a twinge of regret.

"I don't know why you are bothering with all this," he said. "Amelie is hardly being circumspect. All we need to do to find her is follow the trail of corpses." He smirked wickedly. "Perhaps if we asked politely one of her victims might point the way to your sister. They are so spritely for corpses, after all."

"If'n you don't have a thing of worth to say vampire, kindly keep your mouth shut." Ambrose grumbled not looking up from his fussing. "This ain't just about a location spell. If finding her was all I was about I'd not waste time on all this. She's my sister; my blood can track her easy enough."

Knocking back his whiskey the vampire sat up and deposited the tumbler onto the nightstand. "Then why are we wasting time on all this?" He asked, not unreasonably he thought.

Ambrose looked up irritably, jaundice yellow stained eyes sour. Still he realised swiftly enough that refusing to answer the vampire would not solve anything but sating his curiosity might give Ambrose the silence he needed to be about his work. Muttering under his breath about the attention span of vampires who 'ought know better than to interrupt a man about his magic, Ambrose dragged himself up off the floor and sat down heavily on the end of the bed that the vampire sprawled upon.

"See this?" He thrust a tuft of wiry dark hair tied with twine under the vampire's nose. "This is my sister's hair. Know what that means?"

"You have a peculiar fetish for picking up your sister's leavings?" Quirking an eyebrow the vampire plucked the tuft of hair from the warlock's fingers gingerly. He rolled it between thumb and forefinger and wondered what significance he was supposed to derive from a simple, terribly ordinary, lock of hair.

"Ha," Ambrose snorted with short, sharp humour and snatched the hair back. "I told you that blood's about the most powerful ingredient in magic, right?"

"Yes." The vampire pulled himself up to sit properly against the headboard. "I think I recall you wittering on about something like that." He waved his hand in an imperious and impatient gesture. "Come now, don't leave me in suspense. If you have a point get to it."

"Hair, skin, blood - it's all a part of a person. Something like this," Ambrose held up the hair once more, "can be used in spells just like blood. I don't rightly know what my sister's up to, save that she's obsessed with bringing mama back but whatever she's about, this here is our best weapon against her."

"Hair – our best weapon is hair?" Attention sharpening, despite his evident incredulity, the vampire almost reached to take the lock of hair back, but stopped himself at the last moment when Ambrose gave him an askance look.

"I'm hopin' it ain't going to come to it," Ambrose said quietly, pulling himself up from the bed to return to the rest of his spell ingredients on the floor. "But with this lock of hair, once I'm done adding my own magic to it, well, a witch of enough power can use this hair to turn Amelie's magic against her." Ambrose heaved a great sigh. "Black magic against black magic – sometimes there just _ain't_ a fair way to win a fight."

The vampire ignored this – he'd long since lost interest in the merits of fair fighting – and instead focused on what the warlock had not said but strongly inferred. He frowned sharply, brows carving down his forehead and creasing together gravely. "A witch of enough power can use that," he pointed to the hair and skewered a suddenly furtive Ambrose with his sharp eyes. "But not you; is that what I'm hearing? If you don't intend to use the best weapon we have then what, precisely, is the point of all we have done so far?"

Ambrose refused to look anywhere but at the patterned paisley rug he knelt on. He looked very much like the rather shy and retiring boy the vampire remembered from years ago; the boy who had always lived in his sister's shadow. "I can't do it vampire." Ambrose said softly, both apologetic and resolute. "I'll stop her madness if'n I can. I won't stand by an' watch her kill folks just to bring back our mama - who had a life and lived it well – but I can't be the one to end my sister."

Sensing a very troubling shift in Ambrose's commitment to their joint venture the vampire rose from the bed and walked around to where the warlock knelt hunched over his salt circle and other bits of mystical nonsense. "You asked me to kill her. I agreed. Are you going back on the deal?" He asked quietly looking down on Ambrose tiredly.

"No," the warlock shook his head and looked up, some ferment of complicated emotion swimming in his worn eyes, "Just statin' my limitations. That's what you're here for. To do what I can't. Though I'm hopin' it don't come to that."

The vampire cocked his head to the side. "I think it's past that point myself. Your sister isn't just killing people, which I admit I can hardly fault her for, she's profaning the dead for her own ends." The vampire was quiet for a beat, remembering that dead boy and girl in the pantry of that little house. "If we don't stop her she'll do worse than destroy herself. You know that. Don't lose your nerve now."

"I know." Sighing deeply Ambrose rose up on aching knees until he could look the vampire that had all but raised him in the eye directly. "Amelie's always been stronger than me, and I'm too old to worry over my weaknesses now." He said without self pity. "Figure my days are done, but I got to try all the same." He shrugged sadly. "Still whatever happens, you're likely to get out of it no more dead than you are now, so I'm giving to you the means to finish my sister."

Ambrose pushed the lock of hair, coated with his blood and a piece of his magic, into the vampire's jacket pocket. "Guard this well, vampire." He added the scrawled notes of a spell he would not use on his own kin with the hair. "It could be the difference between life and death one day."

* * *

Numbly Caroline watched as Stefan threw the twitching zombie with the hole in his chest on top of the squirming burning zombie and turned the flamethrower on them both once more. The air rippled with heat haze as the scent of gasoline, burning dust, and over-done hamburger meat polluted the once sweet breeze. Stefan didn't laugh maniacally or anything that cliché as he watched the zombies burn, but he still watched. He watched and he didn't stop what he was doing.

Caroline clung to the garage doorframe, nails digging into the wood and tried not to breathe in the sickeningly edible smell. She didn't think she'd ever be able to go to a barbeque without wanting to throw up ever again.

"What about the other one?" She asked, surprising herself with the question. Stefan's head turned towards her once again, his eyes unfathomable. "The one in the house."

"I left the pieces in the parlour," Stefan told her flatly. "It was still twitching when I left, but it wasn't going anywhere in a hurry – at least not all in the same direction."

"Oh," Caroline said breathily cutting her imagination dead before it could even get started on the mental images his words evoked. "Oh...uh-huh, I'm just going to...go sit in the car now, 'kay?"

Caroline sat in the passenger seat of Stefan's car and stared down at her laced fingers twisting in her lap, trying to ignore the liquid wash of flame through the air, the crackle pop of burning skin, muscle, and tissue and the scramble-twitch noises of the zombies dragging themselves across the scorched gravel. It took a long time for the zombies to stop moving. Then, finally, the only sound was that of the flames rippling through the air. Caroline didn't lift her head even when Stefan, the foul reek of ash and char clinging to his clothes, slipped into the driver's side without a word. In silence he started the engine and roared out of the garage, the car doing the screaming for both of them. Once they were speeding down the long driveway away from the boarding house Caroline took in a shaky breath and forced herself to pretend that she wasn't seriously freaked out.

"What are we going to do now?" She asked, because it was honestly the only thing she could ask. Although she did really think about starting a conversation along the lines of: 'hey how are you doing? – That was some badass people burning you did back there - getting in touch with your inner Damon, huh?' But she'd been told she had no tact and Caroline was determined to prove that she did, sometimes. Not that she didn't intend to bring that whole corpse burning thing up later, because, hell yeah, would she. One sadistic maniac Salvatore was already one too many, no one needed Stefan going off the deep end right now. Still, Caroline knew better than to poke the crazy.

"Right now my priority is Damon." Stefan said fingers flexing spasmodically on the steering wheel as he forced his foot off the gas pedal and slowed down as they passed a police car with its sirens blaring racing in the other direction down Old Fell's Road. He never once looked at her, his shadowed eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I was going to leave town," he continued, voice dead and even more controlled to the point of monotone than usual. "Maybe even get out of the state before I revived Damon. I thought if I put some distance between us and Mystic Falls then the town would be safe from Amelie." His fingers curled around the steering wheel so tight the leather covering squealed and his knuckles popped, "Doesn't look like that's an option now."

"Right because Mystic Falls is still corpse central," Caroline nodded until her teeth clicked. She lasted all of five seconds before exploding with questions.

"What's going on?" She twisted in her seat so she could see Stefan better. "The zombies aren't gone. They're supposed to be gone, right? That's what Bonnie said. Shrivelled Damon equals no more witch and no more zombies. So what gives? Seriously Stefan, I don't want to be clueless-girl this time. I hate that. After squishing that zombie with my car and watching you go junior league psycho I deserve to know what's going on." She threw up her hands in frustration grimacing when she noticed the blood and even more icky stuff caked under her nails.

"Damon knows." Stefan said grimly managing to distract her from the horrific state of her nails.

"Ugh," she dropped her hands in disgust, "Not helping Stefan. Damon's a mummy. He's not going to be giving a public speaking tour on zombies anytime soon."

Stefan glanced at her briefly, managing to look vaguely disapproving, which was a slight improvement over the creepy, emotionless pyromaniac Stefan of minutes ago. "Those zombies were sent for him. Not to kill him, but to take him somewhere. Whatever is happening Damon's still a part of it. He knew Amelie. He _killed_ her." A hint of desperation trickled into his speech and he almost ploughed into the back of a buick truck as they hit a stoplight. "He has to know what's going on."

"Okay," Caroline agreed cautiously eyebrows making a bid for outer orbit and privately having some serious misgivings about everything Stefan had just said, because yeah, this was _Damon_ they were talking about. Still Caroline trusted Stefan and if that meant trusting Damon because Stefan seemed to then, well, it would be a stretch but she'd manage somehow. Stefan turned onto the main drag, headed towards the hospital.

"So we're hitting the nearest blood bank to stock up on bag lunches? We're still planning to re-inflate Damon so he can tell us what the hell is going on?" She asked just to be sure.

"I'm bringing Damon back," Stefan confirmed. "Then, no matter what, I'm going to find a way to end this now - today." His expression darkened. "One way or the other Amelie Bennett is finished."

* * *

The scent of mud and mulch filtered into Elena's awareness alongside a dull thudding headache. She groaned and instinctively moved to snuggle deeper into her pillow, only to wrinkle her nose and snap her eyes open when instead of a fluffy pillow smelling of fabric softener and detergent her cheek squished into grainy soil and mostly decomposed fallen leaves.

Eyes flaring wide the first thing Elena saw was the angry, daylight muted, flicker of flames, then her grogginess cleared enough that she could make sense of the sensory cues her eyes were giving her. She was outside, in a large clearing in dense woodland, surrounded by a ring of fire and lying on the ground. She tried to move, to sit up, and felt the unfortunately far too familiar bite of rope wrapped around her, pinning her arms uselessly behind her back and lashing her ankles together. Giving the ropes an experimental tug Elena ended up dragging something heavy and oddly warm against her back – something that groaned.

"Jeremy?"

Despite the pain at the back of her skull Elena did her best to crane her neck around so she could look behind her, but it wasn't any good. From the corner of her eye she could just make out what looked like another person lying back to back with her, but that was all. It was really only ingrained familiarity and instinct that told her it was her brother she was tied to. Twisting her fingers Elena managed to curl her digits around her brother's limp, but warm hand. She squeezed as hard as she could.

"Jeremy can you hear me? Are you hurt?"

Her brother didn't reply, but she could hear the sound of his breathing and feel the warmth of his body against her own. He was probably just unconscious, which while not good, was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Elena closed her eyes and took a calming breath. This wasn't the first time she'd been knocked out, kidnapped, and hog-tied. She'd dealt with it then and she could deal with it now.

Rolling over wasn't going to be possible with Jeremy acting as a bolster at her back and likewise Elena wouldn't be able to sit up unless Jeremy did too so she had no choice but to lie on her side and try to piece together clues to where she and Jeremy were and just how much danger they were in. She remembered being in the parking lot of Alaric's apartment building, she'd been hit from behind, knocked unconscious – had whoever or whatever attacked her got to Jeremy as well? What about Bonnie? Bonnie had been in Alaric's apartment with Jeremy.

Movement in the trees on the far side of the clearing caught her attention and Elena craned her head to see what was there. It was then that she realised that there was a makeshift table made out of old oil drums and plywood planks set up in the centre of the clearing. A series of six wooden poles, hewn from the surrounding trees, lined the table (altar?). Elena squinted past the sunshine and the smoke from the fire. There was something lying on the table and at first Elena couldn't make out what she was seeing then, like a visual puzzle, it became clear.

"Bonnie!"

Instinctively Elena tried to surge upright, forgetting Jeremy's unconscious weight until he groaned again when her motion jerked him an inch of two across the ground before she fell back. Not that Elena noticed because all she could focus on was Bonnie, tied to the table, which could only be some kind of altar, surrounded by small, dark lumps of reddish-grey meat (Elena refused to say 'hearts' because she was trying not panic). Bonnie was clearly still unconscious and her limbs had been arranged so her arms hung over the side of the altar and her legs were straight down the length of the wooden boards; as Elena watched the fleshy lumps surrounding Bonnie head to toe shuddered rhythmically like jelo out of a mould, beating to the same pulse rate.

Breathing shallowly through her nose Elena tensed all over as she realised, stomach twisting savagely, that they were not alone in this clearing. She could feel eyes watching her; the hair at the nape of her neck quivering to attention with that age-old paranoia.

"It's you, isn't it?" She whispered as the temperature dropped rapidly and the flames encircling the clearing rippled and quavered, dropping lower still.

Without needing to see Elena knew that someone was walking up behind her. She knew who it was too. There was only one person it could be. Still when two feet, wasted and grey, toes eaten away and bone exposed at the ankle joints appeared before her Elena almost shut her eyes; a childish reflex that seemed like the best survival mechanism in the world right then.

The stench that wafted from the figure before her was indescribable, foul beyond belief. Rot and stagnant water, mud and fish guts, combined with a skin crawling stench of dead things. Elena could only watch as the figure sunk slowly down in front of her with a sort of sickening broken grace. She saw the gleam of bone and the honeycomb decay of exposed cartilage as knee joints cracked and flaked away in pieces. There was a snap of loose tendon, the waving fringe of necrotic flesh around the wasted, sticklike extension of naked thighs, then a concave and hollowed out grey torso, just barely recognisable as a woman's, before Elena found herself face to face with the most hideous thing she had ever seen; the face of a woman dead for over a century.

Straggles of hair, so thickly clumped with mud it seemed like mud was her hair, still clung to her scalp in places, but in others the flesh had given way to reveal the off-colour gleam of her skull. The nose and lips had been eaten away, leaving just gaping cavity, and the eyes had sunken and shrivelled, yet something still looked out from beyond the empty depths at Elena. Something hateful and malevolent and so, so angry Elena could feel the fury like frostbite against her skin.

Somehow Elena found her voice, even as her mind shied away from the naked horror right in front of her. A traitorous voice in her mind, one fast giving way to panic, kept telling her this was not possible. Damon had killed her. He'd sunk her body to the bottom of a swamp over a hundred years before. This thing could not be what she thought it was, and yet, despite the fact that it made no sense, Elena knew exactly _who_ it was she was seeing.

"Amelie," she whispered eyes widening as she realised with blinding clarity what someone should have figured out before now. A ghost couldn't kill someone to make them a zombie, because a ghost had no body – the only way Amelie could have done everything she'd done was by not just controlling the zombies, but instead, because she _was_ a zombie –and always had been, since the moment Damon killed her in 1900.


	25. Chapter 25

_A/N: Firstly I want to offer a huge thank you to everyone reading and reviewing. This story is only the second one I've ever written to achieve more than 300 reviews, but more than that the incredibly positive response has been just staggering and I can't thank everyone enough for it. Secondly this is officially the longest chapter I have written for this story –over 6000 words. A lot happens, most of it in brand new flashback, but hopefully it should answer some of the questions about what the heck is going on with Amelie. _

_Also – guess who's back!_

* * *

_No good, very bad weekend_

Friday last:

He'd been having dreams; that was the first indication something was not right. At first he'd ignored them. Since the switch had failed he'd been dreaming a lot, half-memories and forgotten sins come back to haunt him now he had no choice but to care about the things he'd done. For the most part Damon had figured the dreams were just the wages of sin long overdue and taken to gulping down an extra night cap or five before bed as a remedy.

The dreams kept coming however, the same one, on repeat in his brain. Ambrose, Amelie, and a whole smorgasbord of things he would rather have stayed buried in his subconscious for another century or two. He wasn't stupid. He didn't believe in coincidence, especially not when witches were involved. So when Liz told him about the suspected satanic rite killings over in the next county, Damon's ears pricked up (metaphorically speaking) and he re-evaluated his dreams.

(But not in a 'how does that make you feel?' kind of way, more like: 'does this mean I get to kill someone?')

He didn't particularly like the conclusions he came to, but that didn't matter. Just like with Mason Lockwood he knew there was something freaky going on and he was going to find out what it was before it reared up and ate his face. He made plans. He checked on the condition of certain items in his possession. He made a half-hearted attempt at proper risk assessment and contingency planning but gave up because, damn it, he wasn't _Stefan_. He didn't _do_ the cautious approach. Heedless aggression and fast backtracking had (mostly) worked out for him for the last hundred and forty-six years so why mess with perfection now?

"Damon?" Stefan stood in the doorway, lingering just outside the threshold of his room as if he had some moral objection to setting foot in Damon's personal den of iniquity. Damon resisted the urge to roll his eyes as Stefan's oh so woe-be-gone regard flicked over the room, presumably looking for all the nubile sex slaves and dead people Stefan must figure he left lying around in his bedroom for anyone to find.

"Stefan," He sing-songed in response and didn't bother looking up from his scrutiny of the crossword on the back page of the paper. He hated crosswords and tended to fill the gaps with dirty limericks as a form of protest against the inanity of life in general. His campaign against the Mystic Chronicle's crossword had reached the point where Stefan, who actually filled in the answers properly (because he really was that boring) had taken to trying to hide the paper from him. In retaliation Damon started defacing the paper by drawing horns and fangs on all the black and white pictures printed inside whenever he managed to get hold of it first. He was a simple psycho, after all, and it was the simple pleasures that made life worth living (or un-living in his case).

"Elena and Caroline are coming over," Stefan told him frowning so he looked like a constipated pug-dog when he saw the red pen Damon held poised over the paper in his lap.

Damon afforded him a bright smile. "Building your harem brother? I approve." He quirked a brow hoping for a reaction because he'd just decided to go do something potentially very stupid and was spoiling for a nice adrenaline pumping fight to get him in the right frame of mind. "I should tell you, speaking from experience, if you're thinking of taking Forbes for a test run, gag her first. Girl does not stop talking –ever."

Stefan's brow rolled like an avalanche and Damon notched up a point to himself before his brother managed to smother his initial reaction. "I'm going to ignore that." Stefan told him after a discernable pause, as if he was doing Damon a favour. Then he paused again, one of those _patented_ Stefan pauses that annoyed Damon, because honestly, did Stefan have some issue with the English language that meant he had to take twice as long as anyone else just to say what he was thinking?

"Damon." He managed finally. "What are you up to?"

His brother's eyes looked pointedly at the clutter of various items dug up from his bureau drawers and left scattered over the top. Damon bit back a scowl, he should have tidied up after he'd finished, but how was he supposed to know Stefan would chose today of all days to pay attention to what was going on around him?

"Up to?" He asked smiling.

Stefan nodded. "You've been...less obnoxious than usual all day." Stefan told him. "And I heard you banging around up here earlier."

"Banging around?" Damon's smile slipped into a more natural grin, "Nope, no banging going on around here." His smile faltered because, now he thought about it, that fact was actually very sad. He made a mental note that once he'd investigated this Maudeville ritual killing thing to his satisfaction he would go get laid –and possibly bring his partner back to the house and have very loud sex in his room just to annoy Stefan.

"Right," Stefan tossed him a disgusted look as if he could read his mind. "Bad euphemisms aside, seriously, what are you up to?"

Damon returned his brother's piercing regard pound for pound with his best, most infuriating, faux innocent look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hm," Stefan made that noncommittal noise in the back of his throat that sounded of suspicion. His eyes tracked over the room once more, hesitating on the bottle of bourbon nestled against Damon's hip and his too deliberately blank expression. Still he dropped the issue as he really didn't want to deal with Damon and his Damon-ness tonight.

"We're having a movie night." Stefan said segueing back to his previous point but still fixing his brother with the weight of his gaze. "Elena asked me to tell you that you are welcome to join us if you can stop being an ass for a few hours." A smirk flickered around the edges of Stefan's lips. "We're watching Ghost." He added, simply to see Damon's face crease into a look of affronted horror.

"Ugh, pass." Damon flapped his hand imperiously. "Go. You've done your boyfriendly duty. Don't let me keep you from your oestrogen fest." He rustled the paper spread out across his thighs and tried to look like he was actually reading about the bi-annual Presbyterian bake sale. He managed three lines before giving up and returning his annoyed gaze to Stefan, who was standing there like a gargoyle propped up against his doorframe.

"What?" He snapped.

(Honestly his brother's timing sucked. Why did Stefan have to pick the most inconvenient times to butt into his life?)

Stefan shook his head, his pensive – and worryingly suspicious regard – shifting into his more usual and staid expression of I-weep-for-the-planet's-pain world weariness. "We're almost out of blood bags." He said a bit stiffly, because the people blood was still a sore spot for Stefan. Damon in contrast saw an opportunity and a handy excuse to get out from under his brother's scrutiny.

"Well then I'll go get some." He jumped up from his bed, taking a healthy last swig from his bottle of bourbon before placing it down on the nightstand and moving across the room to shrug into his jacket, patting his pockets for his car keys.

"I didn't mean you had to leave now." Stefan said which was pretty much a lie but Damon didn't feel like calling him on it. Instead he just shrugged. "Eh, I'm hungry anyway." There was a blood bank just out past Maudeville, he'd used it before. He could pick up the blood and then swing by the murder site on the way home. "I'll grab a bite while I'm fetching bagged lunches for you and Blondie." He'd take a poke around the site, if only to prove to himself that this wasn't what he thought it was, then come back in time to cheerfully mock his brother about his pathetic need to degrade his masculinity and prove, once and for all, that he really was as lame as Damon had always claimed. "Unless you think Elena might be willing to..."

"Don't even go there," Stefan growled and Damon smiled at him pretty much certain he'd knocked his brother off course with the whole suspicious curiosity. Stefan was so cute when he was jealous; cute and so easy to manipulate.

"Whatever you say brother," He clapped Stefan on the shoulder, a little harder than strictly necessary, and walked past him out of his room. The antiquated door chime rang as he was bounding down the stairs and Damon threw open the front door with a flourish.

"Ladies," he swept Elena and Caroline (mostly Elena) a courtly bow and stepped back to let them in. Elena was carrying a family size tub of ice cream and a carry bag of sugary treats. Caroline had a stack of DVD's in her arms stopping just below her chin. A quick glance at the titles convinced Damon he'd made the right decision to skip out on movie night in favour of a date with a potential Satanist killer.

"Damon," Elena frowned at him, which she did often. It wasn't exactly an unhappy expression, but instead was her 'I'm trying to figure you out on a deep and spiritual level, but don't take it the wrong way because I totally like your brother more' look. "Are you leaving?"

"Mmhmm," He smiled at her edging past Caroline, who was glaring at him as if she thought he cared that she didn't like him. "I have a medical facility to rob." He did the eye thing. "You know how it is."

"Oooh," Caroline broke in as Damon hopped off the front stoop. "Can you get some A positive? It tastes better than the others."

Damon halted in mid-step and turned around to look at the dim-witted blonde. "It's blood. It all tastes the same."

"No it doesn't," Caroline insisted matching her four and half months of undead experience against his one hundred and forty-six years without blinking. "It's like the difference between Coke and Pepsi; totally different taste."

Damon blinked. "Remind me why I haven't killed you yet."

Caroline's eyes widened in a moment of fear, which was gratifying because really, blondie should learn to mind her elders, especially when he could snap her in half without breaking a sweat, but then Stefan appeared in the doorway to herd his mini-harem inside. He shot Damon a look that was hardly very respectful either and half-smirked. "Have a nice night Damon."

"Not likely." Damon's own smirk twisted into a grimace as the boarding house door closed firmly on his face.

* * *

Sunday present:

"I don't get why we couldn't just go back to Alaric's apartment." Caroline repeated for the second time. The fact that Stefan had failed to answer her once already not deterring her in the least. "I mean this is so...weird," she gestured at their surroundings – a gutted and abandoned storage building. She was technically on look out duty while Stefan tried to get an IV linked to a blood bag into Damon's arm.

Caroline had thought at first that bringing Damon back would be simple; just force a couple of blood bags down his throat and hey-presto instant re-sanguination. One look at the shredded tissue paper mess he'd made of his neck had put paid to that idea. She shivered. She still didn't like him, he was a jerk and he sucked, but Caroline found that she didn't derive any satisfaction from seeing what Damon looked like under that bed sheet after all.

"I don't want to take the risk," Stefan answered her question distractedly, finally managing to feed the needle into a deflated vein deep enough to begin the transfusion. He held the bag up in the air with one hand and pressed the thumb of his other hand to the pulse point in Damon's wrist. "We don't know the real connection Amelie has to Damon. Plus even if the transfusion works Damon is going to be hungry, very hungry, when he revives. I don't want Elena or the others around him until I know he's in full control."

"Okay, but why are we doing this in the back of your car? Couldn't we just go back to the boarding house?"

"This building is on a secluded slip road leading to an abandoned factory. We'll hear any approaching cars before they come up on us. It's the perfect spot. Far enough away from population centres that we won't be disturbed."

Caroline frowned, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. The sun had been smothered by increasingly dark clouds as the afternoon wore on and their surroundings, a rough, untreated road lined with junk and a rusted chain link fence just screamed out 'death trap' to her. She replayed Stefan's words and realised the hidden message he hadn't said aloud. "Wait -you think someone's going to come after us?"

"I think that Amelie might. She'll know one way or the other when Damon's conscious again. I'm sure of it." Stefan glanced back at her briefly. "She could send more of her zombies after us." He crouched down beside the open trunk of his car so he was more of less eye level with his brother. Caroline noticed that Stefan's free hand had moved from clasping Damon's wrist to holding his hand. "I don't think it's anything we can't handle," he admitted honestly. "But I'd still ask you to leave, for your own safety, except that until Damon's back on his feet..." He trailed off.

"I'm not leaving anyway," Caroline said understanding what he wasn't saying and recognising that Stefan was asking her, without asking, to help him protect Damon if they were attacked because he wasn't sure he could do it alone. "We've already been over this." She smiled, even though Stefan wasn't looking at her. "I'm like your Girl Friday. I've got your back."

Stefan laughed a little then, straightening up so he could look at her, dropping Damon's shrivelled grey hand back down at his side. "Have you even seen that movie?"

"Sure," Caroline nodded. "My dad loves those 'forties screwball comedies." She gave Stefan a haughty look. "When I was seven I wanted to grow up to marry Cary Grant. I cried for days when mom told me he was dead."

Stefan smiled and shook his head. "I never would have thought that about you." He looked at her for a long moment, thoughtful and inscrutable but not in a bad way.

Suddenly nervous for reasons Caroline didn't want to think about she smiled and shrugged, "Well, now you know." She turned around and made the effort to keep an eye out for rampaging corpses headed their way. "I could call the others at least. I mean Elena's got to be worried."

"Elena." Stefan jerked in alarm, his expression twisting in guilt. "I...I hadn't even thought about her." He admitted, sounding mildly horrified. His eyes darted from his brother lying in the trunk of his car, still and corpse-like and then up to the half empty blood bag in his hand.

"Well you did have other stuff on your mind," Caroline pointed out nodding towards Damon. "I don't think you're going to lose your boyfriend of the year award just yet." She fished out her phone and waved it at him. "I'll call her; let her know that the Damon de-mummification operation is a-go."

Stefan nodded, already distracted with his brother's condition. Caroline couldn't see Damon too clearly from where she stood a few feet from the car and she was actually glad of that. She'd never seen a shrivelled vampire before and seeing Damon had reminded her forcibly that as a vampire the same thing could happen to her. Still she didn't need to be a mind reader to know Stefan was worried. The first blood bag was mostly empty already and Damon still looked deader than an ancient Egyptian. He didn't seem to have healed at all. She really wasn't sure what Stefan would do if he couldn't revive Damon.

Caroline shivered again. She was well aware that Stefan had taken hold of Damon's hand and was holding it the way a normal person might clasp the hand of a sick relative they wished well with all their heart. She turned her back from the oddly painful scene and speed dialled Elena's number.

* * *

Friday last:

The murder site in the woods outside Maudeville, a town about the same size as Mystic Falls but with a whole lot less money behind it, was guarded. Still, and again unlike Mystic Falls, the newbie officer stuck on the night watch did not receive regular infusions of vervain with his donut fixes. Damon convinced him to go sit in his squad car and take a little nap while he poked around inside the yellow police tape barricade uninhibited.

An owl hooted in a tree about forty feet away as Damon tramped through the woods headed towards the murder site. Somewhere a little further off a fox hunted vermin and he surprised a rabbit in the underbrush as he trekked along. Still Damon was used to ignoring the rustling and bustling of life occurring all around him in what would be for a human a near silent night in the woods.

A vampire's senses are far superior to a human's but, unless the vampire knew how to use those senses, they were not always an advantage. It took experience and trial and error to understand all the minute, subtle signals his enhanced hearing, sight, and smell picked up in the woods. For instance the undercurrent of carrion on the air, mingled with the rich, earthy aroma of decay, didn't necessarily mean anything. The woods were teeming with animal carcasses slowly decomposing and the sharp, unmistakable tang of copper heavy blood he caught as the wind changed could have come from the vole the hunting fox had snared just a minute ago.

The stink of magic, however, now that couldn't be written off – not unless evolution in the animal kingdom had taken a decidedly odd turn while he wasn't looking.

Burnt tin and ozone; this scent was what he had come to equate unequivocally with magic. Sometimes it was a little different depending on an individual, Bonnie tended to exude an aroma like melted liquorice when she was doing her juju, and Bree had given off this gorgeous musky smell when she did her thing, but underneath it all there was always the scent of burning tin and ozone. It was that smell he caught now, just a whisper sitting stagnant on the air.

Damon paused under the canopy of the trees. This changed things. If this killing was a genuine witch ritual and not some random nut-job with a penchant for pentagrams and casual mutilation then he should retreat now, maybe go fetch the teacher, or if he was going to be all responsible about things, give Bonnie a heads up. On the other hand, he'd made the trek all the way out here. What harm could there be in taking a little look around?

He grinned at his 'famous last words' and continued forward towards the murder site. Soon it was obvious he was going the right way and not just because of the tell-tale signs of police and forensics teams along freshly beaten trails in the undergrowth, but because the hair on the back of his arms had risen on end and the air carried a charge, like static electricity. The scent of magic and old blood was also stronger here.

The clearing where the killing itself took place wasn't all that interesting. There were the obligatory obscure mystical designs carved messily into the tree trunks, but those were left for obfuscation purposes only. Damon had never met a witch, or warlock, stupid enough to leave evidence of their spell casting behind. Magic users of both genders tended to be paranoid and covetous, jealous of their rivals' power and afraid that some other witch would come along and steal theirs in turn.

The altar, a dead fall log, was also mostly for show –although the blood soaked into the bark was a distant temptation to the taste buds and a reminder that he hadn't fed yet. In fact there wasn't much left in the clearing for Damon to work with except for the reek of magic itself and the blackened, scorched outline of a fire circle surrounding the outer edges of the clearing. He'd seen something like this before, albeit a hundred years ago.

"Well isn't this just peachy." He sneered, fingers quivering at his sides. He prided himself on having a pretty sharp instinct for trouble (and an unerring ability to find it) and right now his vamp-senses were tingling. This had all the hallmarks of a set up. It also seemed like his dreams weren't just dreams after all.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he called softly, voice lilting as his nose wrinkled, assailed by the reek of rot. Every sense was primed as something slow moving but steady dragged itself forward from the far side of the clearing. Keen eyes picked up a vaguely human shape; a silhouette detaching from the indeterminate mass of night shadow. All the same he knew the figure watching him from thirty feet away wasn't human, or at least not a living one.

Tilting his head back, nostrils flaring, he tasted the air, sampling it as a snake might while trying to catalogue the different nuances on the air. Blood, death, magic - who else could it be? A wide grimace spread his lips away from his teeth, grown sharp and keen as he realised just how deep he'd stepped in it this time.

"Why does no one I kill stay dead?" He asked rhetorically, almost laughing at himself as Amelie Bennett's corpse dragged itself out of the darkness before him.

Somewhere deep in sunken eye sockets something cold and angry flared inside her skull. He noted with detached amusement that he really wasn't all that surprised to see her - had been expecting it even - considering the year he was having so far it just figured that Amelie freaking Bennett would return. Seriously the universe hadn't kicked him in the balls for at least a month or more, he was overdue a little new suffering. Amelie couldn't speak; the soft tissue of her tongue and tonsils had long since rotted away, yet Damon had the odd feeling that he would be able to hear her words all the same if he just let himself listen.

He and Amelie circled one another in silence, his movements long and smooth, hers flying in the face of the natural order, yet both of them were dead and displaced from their own time and place. There was a strange symmetry to it all; a fucked up glorious perfection. He wondered how he was going to kill her. Ripping her limb from limb could work. Still he was just a little wary. He stopped circling and cocked his head to the side, surveying his prey through narrowed eyes.

"I should have ripped your damn heart out instead of your throat," he said with a sigh, catching the slow, regular thump of the dead organ still lodged in her emaciated chest. Ambrose had told him that destroying the heart was the way to take out a zombie, but back in 1900 he'd been a little distracted – and how was he to know that Amelie had the juice to turn herself into a zombie, even after he'd torn out her jugular?

His thoughts raced as he stared at her and then he laughed again, a sharp barking sound. "Bitch, you set me up. Back then, you weren't trying to raise Emily at all. All those zombies – you were _practicing_."

The zombie shifted, a ripple of animation contorting what was left of her face and although the movement did not in any way resemble a smile (generally a person needed lips for that) Damon still felt the laughing triumph in Amelie, the cold superior mockery. Oh, yes, she thought she was so very clever. She'd played him and her brother and bought herself a ticket to eternity – but why? There were other, far less revolting ways to cheat death, vampirism for one, and while he wasn't sure a witch could actually make the turn, he refused to believe that Amelie had just up and decided in 1900 that what she really wanted to do for the next century and change was become a slow rotting walking corpse.

As if to further taunt him as he tried to figure it out, Amelie raised one bony arm and pointed a fleshless finger at him. _You_, He sensed her words through some means that had nothing to do with hearing them. _Mama made the deal with you. One hundred and forty-five years. She had to come back to honour the deal. It was my only chance. _

Damon blinked rapidly several times in complete surprise. "You're kidding me." If he'd been less of a bad ass he'd have been gaping at her like a slack-jawed yokel. "That's it? You did all this because of my deal with Emily?" He shook his head, jerking his arm in a sharp slashing motion. "Well I've got news for you sweetheart. Emily's been and gone – and you _missed_ her."

That was, perhaps, a _baaad_ thing to say because right then Amelie's corpse launched itself at him, fast as the proverbial bat out of hell.

* * *

Sunday present:

Stefan exchanged another empty blood bag for a full one, the fourth, and stared down into Damon's ruined face as the line of blood pumped into his brother's arm. Damon didn't even look like Damon. Grey skin, thin as old parchment and flaking like burned varnish, stretched over fragile, jagged bones. His lips had curled up, pulled back from gums and savage teeth in a hideous death grimace, robbing Damon of the looks he had used to smooth his way for the last century. His eyes, thankfully closed, had sunk deep into his skull, the lids puckered and creased. Stefan was brutally aware of the stillness of his brother's chest, the torn skin that wouldn't close just under his breastbone and the shredded ruin of his throat. There was blood in Damon's veins again, at least two pints already, but unless his heart started pumping the blood around his body once more none of it would do Damon any good.

To Stefan, staring at his brother so hard his eyes ached, it seemed almost like his entire undead existence had come full circle. Once again he was trying to force stolen blood and life into his brother when Damon gave every indication that he'd prefer to die. But that wasn't an option. Just like that day in 1864, the day he discovered he was damned, Stefan was motivated by only one thing. He didn't want to do this, face eternity, on his own.

Once long ago, after Damon had wreaked his particular brand of chaos on Stefan's life once more, Lexi had come to him, helped him pick up the pieces and, in her quiet but straightforward way, asked him if he wanted Damon finished. She'd said that his brother was broken, that it happened to vampires sometimes. Damon was just too full of hate to function normally. Lexi had said she could arrange for Damon to be granted 'release' as painlessly as possible, but she would only do so if Stefan agreed. Stefan had slammed her into a wall and told her, in no uncertain terms, that his issues with his brother were no one's concern but his and Damon's. Lexi got the message and never brought up killing Damon again.

Looking down into Damon's face, clasping his brother's clawed and skeletal fingers in his hand, Stefan knew that he hadn't warned Lexi off for Damon's sake. He'd done it for his own. As much as he had hated Damon and feared him and wished him gone from his life in the last hundred years he had still, paradoxically, clung to the inescapable truth that Damon would always be there. Locked in hatred, at war with one another, they were still and would always be, the Salvatore _brothers_ -and Stefan, Stefan, had to face the fact that he wanted it this way.

_He_ _needed_ _Damon._

Damon was his mirror, a reflection of what he could become and all the things, good and bad, he would never be. In life Damon had been his role model, his brother's dogged determination to speak his mind and follow it no matter what, a trait Stefan had admired, even as he saw the flaws in his brother's intransigence and how it cost him their father's respect. Stefan had envied Damon his easy charm, his lack of inhibition, and the way he could wear his heart on his sleeve, even when it cost him dearly, because Stefan knew he could never be that reckless. Even now, as he watched Damon claw back his discarded sanity inch by inch, Stefan was constantly measuring himself against his brother. If Damon died who would he have to stand up to, and to whom would he be compared in people's minds? The thought scared Stefan. He squeezed down on his brother's hand tightly and silently begged Damon to squeeze back.

* * *

Friday last:

Damon crashed through the middle of the dead fall altar, Amelie riding him down to the ground like a deranged rodeo rider with a severe case of leprosy. She was choking him, possessed of a strength that beggared belief, but Damon was no slouch when it came to a fight. He twisted underneath her, bucking up from the ground to kick her off him.

The zombie staggered backward, teetering but not falling. Her jaws gaped open on a silent howl of rage and the stink of bad magic rose on the currents of air whipped up around the clearing cold as hell frozen over. Damon snarled and ploughed into her like a linebacker, striking her with his shoulder and sending her body bouncing into a tree. He jerked back a fist, ready to plunge his hand into her chest and tear out her foul heart. Amelie's head jerked forward, straining her torn neck and she bit deep into his shoulder, blackened teeth digging right through the leather of his jacket.

"You little –'' Outraged he smashed his fist into her face, knuckles scraping against the spine of exposed cartilage that was all that remained of her nose. Amelie's head snapped back against the tree trunk but the miasma of magic still rose up around him, thick and cloying. A spasm of pain ripped through his gut and Damon doubled over, clawing at his chest as agony like nothing he'd ever known tore through him.

His veins were twisting under his skin, his heart shuddering. He couldn't breathe, lungs collapsing like broken bellows. He fell to his knees eyes wide and uncomprehending. Amelie's zombie grasped his head in her two hands, filthy long nails digging into his scalp like talons.

_Mama broke her word._ She intoned without words as Damon spluttered, beginning to choke. _She must pay her debts to you._ Blood, creeping cold and dead, began to crawl out from his eyes, leaking like slow running tears. _Together we will call her here vampire. _More blood forced its way up his throat and out of his mouth, while simultaneously pouring from his nose. His body twitched and writhed. _Together we will burn this town. _

Amelie's corpse shoved him away and Damon fell to the ground, spine bowing, fingers clawing at the dry dust and dirt as Amelie's ghost wrenched free of his body in a deluge of blood. Convulsing on the ground he watched, nearly mindless with pain, as zombie and ghost, two halves of one monstrous whole, combined.

_But first I shall break you. _

Magic surged on the air. Amelie pointed one dead finger, wreathed in a corona of blood, straight at him. Damon screamed and screamed and screamed as Amelie did her best to destroy his mind.

* * *

Sunday present:

Caroline jerked the phone from her ear and glared at the display screen. This was the second time she'd tried to call Bonnie and the second time the call had bounced straight to voicemail. The same thing had happened when she'd tried to call Elena first and then Jeremy after Bonnie was a no go.

"I can't get an answer," she told Stefan, stepping over one of a half dozen discarded blood bags lying on the floor by the car. "I can't get through to Elena, Bonnie, or Jeremy. That's not normal."

Stefan fished his own phone from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to her as he hooked up another full blood bag to the tube feeding into Damon's arm. "Try mine."

Caroline frowned, not particularly liking the inference that her friends would ignore a call coming in from her but answer one from Stefan, but went ahead and dialled Elena anyway. She was worried. There was no good reason the others wouldn't take calls, especially Elena. She should be hanging on the end of the phone just waiting for a call.

"Ugh, no answer," Caroline scrolled through the contacts list until she found Bonnie's number and tried that. She peered into the trunk as the dial tone rang in her ear. She narrowed her eyes. Damon still looked like a day old corpse, but considering he'd looked like a thousand year old mummy an hour ago that was actually an improvement.

"Nope nothing," Caroline said fifteen seconds later after the automated voice told her to leave a message once again. "They're not answering Stefan. Something's wrong."

Stefan was frowning. He lowered his arm holding the blood bag and dropped Damon's wrist back down onto his chest before taking his phone back from her. Swiftly his fingers darted over the screen as he typed a text message. Caroline rolled her eyes.

"I tried that, you know." She pointed out tartly. "They don't answer."

Stefan didn't bother to reply to that and instead found another number in his contact list. Caroline heard the faint buzz of ringing and then a man's voice.

"Stefan, what is it?" Alaric's voice was tinny and distant but Caroline thought she heard an uncharacteristic sharpness to it. He didn't sound happy.

"Do you know where Elena is?" Stefan asked, not wasting time.

"What? She's with Jeremy and Bonnie at mine, isn't it she?"

Stefan shook his head sharply and Caroline felt her stomach tighten with growing anxiety. This was so not good. "She won't answer her phone. None of them will. When was the last time you talked to them?"

"About an hour ago; I called the apartment. Jeremy answered. Look Stefan, in case you hadn't noticed, things are crazy here. The zombies are killing people in town and Sheriff Forbes is about ready to call a town wide evacuation so we can find the things before they kill anyone else. Unless you have something useful to add, I've got to go."

"Fine," Stefan snapped and cut off the call with Alaric, raking one hand through his hair in frustration. Caroline met Stefan's eyes when he looked up at her.

"You think it's Amelie, don't you." Caroline said and it wasn't a question. Stefan's lips thinned; a muscle in his cheek jumping. He didn't need to say anything; the fear deep in his eyes was answer enough.

"I need to find Elena." Stefan jerked into motion, stepping away from the trunk. Caroline moved toward him, hands fluttering not sure what she meant to do, or even what she wanted to do.

"Wait – Stefan..."

It was then that another hand, thickly veined and still sort of grey, shot out from inside the trunk and latched around Stefan's wrist, stopping him dead. Both Stefan and Caroline whipped around, turning to stare wide eyed into the trunk.

Damon was awake. His blue eyes seemed to blaze from deep inside his sunken sockets, dark hungry capillaries writhing under the fragile, dry skin of his cheeks. Movements jerky and awkward, he yanked the IV needle from his arm and sucked in one harsh, rasping breath, chest inflating and freshly healed throat bobbing. "I know," he croaked in a voice from beyond the grave, eyes fixed unwaveringly on Stefan's. "I know where they are."


	26. Chapter 26

_Cruel leverage_

Elena watched in silence has her phone finally stopped ringing, the display telling her that both Caroline and Stefan had tried to call her. Clenching her jaw she looked beyond the phone, held in skeletal fingers in front of her eyes, and up along a withered arm to the face of the hideous corpse before her.

"What do you want?" She spat out refusing to show fear.

Amelie didn't answer, Elena wasn't sure if the zombie could speak. Instead the creature fondled her phone, tapping fleshless fingers over the Perspex as the phone thrummed with an incoming message. Elena wriggled in her bonds, still unable to break free. She hated her weakness; hated her vulnerability. She hated even more that there was nothing she could do for Jeremy, tied and still unconscious at her back, or Bonnie bound to the altar feet away.

"Answer me," Elena pushed, straining her neck to keep her head up off the ground. "You must want something. We'd be dead if you didn't." Elena had been kidnapped enough times by now to know how the game went. The bad guys didn't take living hostages unless they were working the leverage angle or wanted something from one of their captives. Elena couldn't think of anything Amelie could want from_ her_, so that left the prospect that she was being used as leverage against...Damon.

Amelie had risen to her feet but now turned her head to look back at Elena, the torn and dried flesh of her neck splitting and flaking more as she did so. Elena didn't know why but she felt like Amelie could read the thoughts flying around inside her head.

Stubbornly she narrowed her eyes at the dead witch. "It won't work. I won't do anything to hurt Damon. And I won't _help_ you."

Amelie just watched her with empty eye sockets, the stink and cold emanating from her rotted body tangling spectral fingers around Elena's throat, choking her and polluting the air in her lungs. The zombie dropped the phone and it clattered to the dirt right by Elena's nose. Then she walked away towards Bonnie and the makeshift altar.

"What do you want?" Elena demanded again, anger and frustration causing tears to sting her eyes.

She couldn't believe this was happening again. Life had only just started to get back to normal after the whole thing with Klaus and the curse, and now here she and her loved ones were again, pawns in some new monster's twisted plans. Worse even than the Klaus thing was the fact that Elena couldn't use herself as a bargaining chip; she had no leverage with Amelie, no idea what Bonnie's deranged ancestress could possibly want. She watched in sick impotence as Amelie picked up a large, curved blade from the altar beside Bonnie's still form and held it up to the fire light. The flames danced in the icy steel of the blade like a devilish promise. Once again the witch-zombie turned to look over her shoulder at Elena, and somehow the gesture managed to portray a certain amount of sadistic slyness. Amelie was playing with her like a cat with a mouse.

"No," Elena whispered before she could help herself as Amelie casually held the point of the wicked blade over Bonnie's breastbone. Her friend, still completely insensate, didn't even stir as the zombie negligently trailed the tip of the blade up from her diaphragm to the hollow of her collarbone, not pressing deep enough to cut, but making it very clear that she could butcher Bonnie right here and now and there would be nothing Elena could do to stop her. Something cold and hard settled like a rock inside Elena's roiling stomach and she was, quite abruptly, supremely pissed off. She glared for all her worth at the dead witch.

"You won't," she told Amelie, speaking with more confidence than she truly felt. "You want something from us, or you want to use us. That altar and those hearts mean something. You're not going to just kill Bonnie to prove a point to me."

Elena couldn't be sure but she thought she'd struck a nerve (if the witch had any left in that rotted husk of a body) because Amelie turned away from Bonnie and the altar, still clasping the knife in one hand, and advanced on her instead. Elena opened her mouth to capitalise on her success but felt her throat lock involuntarily. Her mouth opened on a silent 'O' of surprise as her lungs flared and surged with a desire for air she couldn't grant. Elena's eyes widened, popping, as Amelie held up one clenched fist, twisting her hand in the air as if wringing the oxygen from her body long distance.

Angry grey spots ate at the corners of her vision as Elena's body jerked and twitched. Blood pounded in her ears and her head rang with the thunder of her heart. A moment later Amelie had the knife notched under Elena's chin and her own involuntary movement caused her to cut herself on the sharp edge. Fighting for control and almost blind from oxygen deprivation she stared up at Amelie and willed the witch to kill her if she was going to because she wasn't going to give in.

The stalemate dragged on for a number of agonisingly slow seconds. Elena lost feeling in her tingling fingers and her legs below the knee. Her vision shattered into a snowstorm of black and white and all she could hear was a high singing in her ears that told her she was about to pass out. Her insides felt like they were ready to explode, heart palpitating and lungs fit to burst with all the carbon dioxide she couldn't expel. Yet she held on, wresting as much control of her body as she could so she didn't accidently slit her own throat on Amelie's knife. She didn't want to die but she wasn't afraid to either. She had learned that there were far worse fates than dying – and living knowing she had failed to protect her loved ones might just be one of them.

As she spiralled towards unconsciousness Elena wondered if Damon had felt this way when he'd drained himself so she could get free. As soon as thought came to her a flash of guilt followed. She hadn't managed to honour his sacrifice all that well, had she? She could almost hear Damon's voice deep in the recesses of her mind, his mocking drawl rolling up out of the pulsating darkness, congratulating her on her ability to endlessly get herself into trouble.

_Bravo Elena. Next time I sacrifice myself to save you, do us both a favour and _stay_ safe. This damsel in distress, kidnapped heroine thing is getting old._

Suddenly Elena could breathe again. Gasping like a landed fish she coughed in rafts of air, tears streaming down her cheeks and bile on her tongue. The ringing in her ears diminished by degrees as her body normalised. Yet she barely had time to realise she was still alive before the ropes at her wrists were sliced away and she was thrown across the clearing, falling hard as her ankles were still lashed together. Instinctively she put out her arms to cushion her fall and felt the red hot spike of shock rocket up her arm as her right wrist snapped.

She didn't have time to react to this pain however as Amelie was upon her, tangling dead fingers into her hair and yanking her head back. Elena gritted her teeth and stared straight at the Amelie, putting all her defiance into her eyes. "You could have killed me. You didn't. I was right."

Amelie dragged her upright by the hair and Elena fell against the zombie's body because with her feet bound her balance was shot. Still her hands were free and Elena turned as she stumbled so she could shove at Amelie with all her might. The feel of the dead witch's skin against her palms made her flesh crawl. Amelie felt like old, dry leather over twig bones and yet in places there was a spongy quality to her flesh, like mould. Her sudden attack must have caught Amelie by surprise as the zombie stumbled, the pair falling as Elena's unbalanced weight set them both on a collision course with the hard ground.

Elena ignored the shooting, hot poker pain coming from her right wrist as she grappled for the knife as they fell, her on top. Her fingers had just curled around the handle when a surge of cold hit her and a blast of air sent her flying backward six feet. The impact with the ground winded Elena, all the breath leaving her body again as her lower back smacked painfully into unforgiving dirt. Still she didn't have time for pain. Clenching her fingers around the knife she'd torn from Amelie's undead hand Elena slashed at the ropes at her ankles, slicing her skin in her haste. She then half crawled and half threw herself along the ground to the altar.

Not allowing a moment to panic or second guess herself Elena stabbed the blade of the knife down into the throbbing mass of one of the hearts lining the altar around Bonnie's body. Damon had told her that taking out the heart took out the zombie. Elena had no idea which of the dozen or more hearts belonged to Amelie, or if any of them did, but she didn't care. She'd make mince meat out of all of them. She raised the knife to burst another one when Amelie hit her from behind, body-tackling her away from the altar.

* * *

"Repeat; there is a noxious fume cloud headed towards Mystic Falls. All residents of the Old Fell's Road and surrounding area are advised to leave their homes immediately and congregate at the High School."

Alaric looked out of the squad car window as the Sheriff drove slowly down the road, playing the recorded message from a speaker rigged up to the roof of the car. Regular patrol officers were going door to door herding confused residents out of their houses.

"But this makes no sense. If there's a toxic cloud or whatever shouldn't we just stay in our homes with the windows and doors shut?" Alaric heard one woman ask as she was almost pushed towards her car by one of the Sheriff's deputies, her two young children chattering excitedly and running around her feet.

"That's actually a good point," Alaric pointed out quietly. "It's going to be hard to manufacture a toxic cloud that doesn't exist. People will suspect something." He paused before adding. "Even here in Mystic Falls." The propensity of most if the town's population to make like an ostrich when it came to the weird and violent happenings so frequent in their sleepy little town did have a limit after all, Alaric thought that the inconvenience of a forced evacuation on a Sunday evening might just be that limit.

Liz Forbes sighed, "I'll gladly take the criticism afterward if it means no more people die." She turned down one of the off-shoot roads leading off from Old Fell's Road. "Most of the attacks have occurred in this area and in the backwoods. If we can clear a radius of a few miles we might be able to box in and capture these monsters."

Alaric shifted in his seat, sitting up a little. "Right, do we have a plan of how to do that? These things aren't super strong like vampires, but they also don't have a pain reflex. Shooting them isn't going to stop them, or even deter them."

"True," the Sheriff agreed darkly her hands clenching around the steering wheel. "But I'm hoping if we, and my deputies, can herd them all into one place we can just hack them to bits until the pieces stop moving." Liz shrugged her shoulders in a quick tense movement. "That or we push them into the woods, set a fire, and hope the inferno takes the zombies out with the rest of the deadwood."

"Oh," Alaric blinked and looked over at the woman beside him with new insight. "You know, I think I just realised why you and Damon are friends." He said slightly impressed and a lot disturbed.

* * *

Elena twisted, kicking and stabbing with the knife like a wild cat as Amelie clawed and bit back; the stench of the dead witch's body suffocating her just as well as Amelie's magic trick earlier. Still, as ferocious as Elena was, she was still capable of feeling pain and growing fatigued, while the zombie was not. Elena's repeated stabbings had no impact on Amelie's corpse and her arm began to tire. It was then that Amelie threw Elena again, sending her hurtling across the clearing away from the altar.

Elena scrambled up as fast as she could, ready to go down ripping Amelie to shreds with her bare hands if she had to, but as she sat up, shaking her tangled, leaf strewn hair from her face she realised that Amelie had another weapon to use against her.

Jeremy.

Amelie had hauled Jeremy upright and now held his body like a human shield, one hand sneaking around his torso so she could dig her yellowed nails into his flesh right over his heart. The threat was explicitly clear. Amelie would rip out Jeremy's heart, just as she and her minions had done to over a dozen other innocent people.

"Don't hurt him." Elena felt the fight rush out of her, her mouth dry as dust. Jeremy's head lolled limply against his chest. He was still completely unconscious and his hands and feet were tied. He was defenceless, utterly helpless. Amelie's nails, cruel as claws, dug into the fabric of his t-shirt, puckering it, and penetrating the flesh beyond. "Let my brother go."

Amelie cocked her head to the side and, still holding Jeremy upright with one arm notched under his chin, used her other hand to point down at the ground. Elena realised that she was pointing at her discarded cell phone.

Elena's heart contracted into a tight, hot knot. She had no choice. Amelie would kill Jeremy, Elena didn't doubt that. Whatever value Elena had as leverage didn't extend to Jeremy. No, her brother was here as leverage against Elena - to force her to draw Damon, or even Stefan, out here.

Staring into the emptiness of Amelie's eyes Elena knew she had to make a choice, when really there was no choice to make. She reached for her phone, never taking her eyes from her brother's pale, slack face, and dialled.

* * *

Caroline stared out at the sky from the doorway of the abandoned storage unit. The late afternoon had almost given way to full evening, the night eager to begin, but the sun still lingered on the edge of the horizon. She huffed out a sigh of frustration and turned back around to the other person sitting well back in the shadows of the building. There were a lot of slurping, growling sounds coming from the corner. Caroline's face creased in distaste as a crumpled, spent blood bag bounced across the cracked concrete, thrown away like all the others. A pale hand darted out from the shadows to snag another full one and the gross nom-nom-nom, slurp, slurp, noises started up again in earnest.

"You're disgusting." She told her least favourite Salvatore brother as she stepped further into the unit. Damon was sprawled against the far wall, well away from the dwindling light of day, legs stretched out and body slouched like a broken puppet. He tilted his head up and back, almost throwing the blood down his throat and ignored her.

"Why do I have to stay here and babysit you anyway?" She asked, more or less rhetorically as Damon finally stopped gulping blood long enough to take a few breaths of air and wipe the sticky red trails from his chin. "Why couldn't I go with Stefan?"

"Because that's not the plan," Damon's voice was rough and it sounded like speaking hurt him. All the same the blue eyes he turned on her were sharp, keen, and utterly without sympathy. "You want on the team? Then you play by our rules."

"More like _your_ rules," Caroline snapped careful to remain out of grabbing reach. Damon might still look kind of grey and haggard but there was something about him right now that reminded her why she was still very much afraid of him. "I don't know why Stefan agreed to..." she began only to be cut off by Damon.

"Stefan knows how to play ball, Blondie."

"Yeah but..."

Damon moved then, one arm shooting out like a striking snake. Caroline yelped and jumped back, anticipating an attack but all Damon did was snatch up another of the dwindling supply of blood bags. He tore into it as if he wished it was someone's neck and looked at Caroline with contempt.

"Relax, killing you is so not part of the plan." He paused for a beat, cocking his head to the side, "Yet."

Caroline straightened out of her crouch slowly as Damon went back to knocking back blood like continuous shots of Tequila and more or less ignoring her. She felt foolish but at the same time no one would ever convince her not to be afraid of Damon. Shaking her hair from her face and propping her hands at her hips she tried to get back a bit of composure. "Okay, so what is the plan then?"

As much as Caroline had tried to follow Damon and Stefan's whispered conversation earlier, the one that had resulted in Stefan driving off to go fetch something or other that Damon had hidden somewhere on the boarding house grounds, she'd soon gotten lost in the furious flow of coded looks, gestures, and half sentences the brothers had slipped into. It really had been like a whole other language that only someone with the name Salvatore could possibly hope to understand.

Now Damon lowered the blood bag from his bloody lips and rested the back of his skull against the cinderblock wall. He looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes, his slight smile secretive and weirdly indulgent. He raised one hand and quirked the fingers. "C'mere," he purred running his tongue over his bottom lip to lap up the last of the blood. Hunger smouldered in the almost colourless slits of his eyes.

Caroline baulked skittering a step back. "Uh, no, pass."

"Get over here." The lazy quality had left Damon's voice and his eyes opened fully wide, almost popping, in that way of his that screamed: 'I'm a complete psychopath, do what I say before I feed you your own liver.' Caroline swallowed and shook her head. She didn't want to be afraid, she knew Damon was still weak, and more to the point, unable to travel in daylight without his ring, yet she couldn't help it.

Damon growled low in his throat, not even trying to sound human. "Caroline." He gritted out, using her given name for once. He shifted against the floor, the soles of his boots scraping over the ground as he dragged himself up right. Caroline took another step back towards the light. She didn't think Damon was going to hurt her, and she was way more able to defend herself now than when she'd been human, but the rational part of her brain that told her that Damon hadn't lifted a hand against her since Elena convinced him to let her live after her turn wasn't enough to break through Caroline's mounting panic.

Damon had propped himself up against the wall, but Caroline could see the tremors running up and down the muscles of his legs. He was standing, but she doubted he'd be able to stay that way without the wall for support. She told herself that she had all the advantage right now, full use of her vampire strength, immunity to sunlight – even if Damon was planning something bad she had the means to stop him. It helped her push back the panic.

"What do you want?" She asked him hoping to sound confident and belligerent and failing miserably.

An odd expression passed over Damon's face, he looked uncomfortable and pained, like he was about to say something he really didn't want to. Swiping one hand over his sallow face he sighed and looked straight at her. "I want...to teach you." He ground out reluctantly.

"What?" Caroline forgot all about her fear then.

"You're a vampire." Damon said slowly as if he was disgusted with himself for even continuing this conversation. "A very new vampire; you're barely even dead."

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest, it was kind of stupid but the way he said 'barely even dead' left her feeling vaguely insulted, like being not as dead as him was a bad thing or something. "Oh yeah, well just because I'm not some washed up hundred year old fossil doesn't mean..."

"The younger a vampire is, the more resistance they have to necromancy." Damon snapped interrupting her again. The look he shot her quelling any further questions bubbling on the tip of her tongue. "I had to mummify myself to get free of the curse. Stefan doesn't have the strength to do even that. _We_ can't fight Amelie." Damon pushed himself off from the wall, bracing his feet far apart to keep his balance. "But _you_ can."

Caroline opened and closed her mouth on thin air, only managing to squeak out, "Me?"

"Yep," Damon's lips pulled back in a savage grimace, teeth sharp edged and vicious. "Now get your pert little ass over here. Daddy's got some things to teach you."

* * *

"Damn it Damon," Stefan hissed as he upended another drawer from the bureau onto his brother's bed, having already ransacked the closet and the hiding space under the loose floorboard. "You said it would be in here."

Stefan raked a hand through his hair and let out a slow breath from his nose. He supposed he should make allowances, Damon had just revived from mummification and it was possible he'd confused where he'd hidden Ambrose's spelled lock of hair and grimoire in his own mind. All the same Stefan was wasting valuable time rooting through his brother's stuff. He needed to think about where Damon would hide these things, rather than look where Damon _said_ he'd hidden them.

His gaze wandered over to the bathroom, still looking like the backdrop for a Saw movie, blood stained tub and all. It wasn't hugely likely that Damon had hidden a century old lock of hair in with his soaps, but he'd better make sure. Twenty seconds later Stefan could confirm that his brother's fetish for hoarding a staggering number of perfumed soaps was still going strong, but he was no closer to finding the hair and grimoire.

Growing frustrated Stefan walked back out of the bathroom. Sometimes when looking for something someone else had hidden it helped to put yourself into the other person's mindset, but Stefan had been trying to get a handle on his brother's way of thinking for the best part of two centuries and hadn't managed it yet, so that stratagem wasn't going to work.

Damon had moved the items from their original hiding spot when he became suspicious about the Maudeville murders. He'd admitted as much. Of course he'd also subsequently forgotten where he'd moved them to, so that didn't help much. Maybe Stefan should take a leaf out of Sherlock's book? When all the possible places to hide them had been exhausted then the most improbable place, no matter how seemingly unlikely, was the only solution.

"Oh you didn't," growling in exasperation Stefan hurried out of his brother's room and bounded up the attic stair to his own room. In three strides he had made it to his dresser and the little enamel box where Elena kept some of her hair supplies, including a spare hairbrush, for the times she spent the night over with him. Flipping open the lid Stefan pulled aside a number of coloured scrunchies and, groaning in annoyance –because seriously of all the stupid places -pulled the dried tuft of witch hair from the tines of Elena's hair brush.

"One down, one to go," shoving the spelled hair into his pants pocket Stefan skimmed his eyes over his room, but he was already fairly sure Damon hadn't hidden the grimoire in amid his shelves. It would be too obviously out of place. Stefan already knew the grimoire wasn't in Damon's room so where could it be? Knowing Damon it would be somewhere obvious yet simultaneously inexplicable.

Stefan remembered that Elena said Damon had gone nuts and started trashing the library for no reason during their entrapment in the house. Now Stefan wondered if perhaps Damon had had an ulterior motive for his rampage. Just as he must have slipped the hair into Elena's hair supplies right under both Amelie and Elena's noses at the same time, Damon could have used his drunken destruction as cover for a new hiding spot for the grimoire. Amelie was watching both he and Elena at the time, and it wasn't unreasonable to suspect that she knew about the Grimoire at the very least, if not the hair. So Damon would need to put on a fairly significant distraction while he hid the book in order to stop either Amelie or Elena from realising what he was doing.

Blurring down the stairs and into the library Stefan took a moment to be annoyed with the damage Damon had done to the wood panelling and the table before checking the debris a bit more carefully. Tattered books and large splinters of wood covered the carpet, but lying on the battered chaise-longue was a pile of old newspapers. Despite himself Stefan felt his lips quirking up as a half-chuckle tried to push out from his throat.

"Only you brother," shaking his head Stefan stuck a hand into the mound of newspaper and sifted through the loose broadsheets until his fingers closed around a slim, leather bound volume hidden inside the pile. The book didn't have a title but as soon as he flipped open the covers and glanced over the first few faded lines upon the yellow pages, written in some language he couldn't read, Stefan knew he'd found the grimoire of Ambrose Bennett. He'd also guess the dog-eared page near the back of the book was most likely the spell they needed as well. He closed the book and tucked it under his arm.

He was just leaving the library when his cell phone rang.


	27. Chapter 27

_A/N: this chapter is choppy, with a lot of scene breaks, but this format was the only one that worked. We're headed to the big finish now and I'm setting up the pins to knock them all down. Oh and Lexicon, I completely agree, BAMF Damon is the only way to go. Existential whiner Damon gets me down too ;)_

* * *

_Hostage negotiations _

"Elena called me," Stefan said over the phone, his voice at its most doom-laden. "You were right. Amelie did exactly what you said she'd do."

Damon rolled his eyes even though his brother couldn't see it. "Well D'uh," He slowed from a sprint to a gentle jog along the Old Fell's Road, "Did you find Ambrose's stuff?"

"Yes," Stefan paused for a moment and then added, "No thanks to you. You forgot to mention that you moved the hair and grimoire again when you were trapped in the house with Amelie's ghost."

Damon frowned, realised Stefan was right, and growled under his breath. "Fine, my bad," He snapped. "You still found them. So quit bitching."

"I'm about ten minutes away from the Maudeville woods," Stefan told him. "Is Caroline ready?"

"Already dispatched," Damon grimaced, and forced himself to continue. "I admit Barbie makes a better foot soldier than I thought. It almost – _almost_ – makes me glad I didn't kill her months back."

"She's stronger and smarter than you give her credit for Damon." Stefan rebuked him almost distractedly. "Does she know the plan?"

"Yep," Damon looked left and right as he reached the residential part of the Fell's Road, considering. He needed to feed, the blood bags had worked to revive him but hunger roared in his gut. He was also running mostly on fumes. Already the casual mile jog from the storage unit back to town had left him feeling slightly breathless and dappled in a light patina of sweat.

"Damon?" Stefan's sharp question bit into his ear.

"What?" He snapped back licking his tongue over his sharp canines.

"I said, are you sure you're up to this?" Stefan repeated and there was an unmistakable note of concern colouring his brother's tone that not even the crackle of the line could disguise. Damon pulled the phone from his ear briefly to frown at it in suspicion.

"Please," he scoffed. "When am I ever not up for a little gratuitous violence and mayhem?"

Stefan's long suffering sigh slithered over the phone. "Just be careful okay? I already had to revive you once today; I'm not going to do it again."

"Ugh, that was hours ago. Get over it. I have." Before Stefan could retort Damon continued. "Quit wasting time and go save our girl." He hit the disconnect button on the call and shoved his cell phone into his back pocket.

Then he stopped and centred himself, not fighting his hunger but not letting it rob him of his senses either. He closed his eyes and listened to the night. The tinkle of breaking glass floated over to him on the breeze like a promise. He padded panther softly down the street until he spotted one lone pick-up truck sitting at the curb side, incongruous in this upper-middle class WASP neighbourhood.

Damon smiled hugely and stalked forward with dinner on his mind.

* * *

Alaric watched the first of a tiny scattering of stars spark to life in the night sky and rolled his shoulders inside his denim jacket. The evacuation was mostly complete and he had assembled with Liz Forbes and about a dozen police officers on the edge of the woods along the Old Fell's Road.

"Sheriff we're ready to proceed with the operation," a deputy announced as he came up beside them.

Liz nodded sharply. "Right, you know the formation. We need teams to enter the woods at every compass point; stay in radio contact at all times and if you find one of those things push it towards the designated round-up site."

"Understood Sheriff," the deputy nodded sharply. Alaric watched him hurry off to relay the orders to the three men teams already waiting by squad cars and wooded trails.

"What if they're not in there?" He asked nodding to the woods. Liz had loaned him the use of a spare night stick and gun, assuring him that she would take responsibility if anyone asked what a civilian history teacher was doing using police issue equipment and getting involved in a police operation. Uncomfortably aware of the odd weight of the night stick and gun hanging from his belt Alaric found himself wishing for some of his own custom weaponry. He couldn't help but think that traipsing into the woods at night looking for an unknown number of killer zombies was not the best way he could spend his evening.

"They have to be here," Liz argued. "The woods link all the attack sites, plus there isn't anywhere else in town a group of walking corpses could hide without someone noticing them."

Privately Alaric wasn't so sure, this town had hosted a hereditary line of werewolves and any number of vampires in its one hundred and fifty year history without anyone noticing anything particularly unusual (until it was too late), but Alaric had to concede that Liz's logic was sound as far as it went. He noticed that the police had already begun to disperse, some teams of three entering the woods and others walking along the road to enter at different locations. Rubbing his jaw tiredly Alaric glanced at the Sheriff.

"Shall we?"

"Yes," Liz pulled out her night stick and threw back her shoulders before starting into the woods. Alaric followed suit, already cataloguing all the ways this idea could backfire on them in catastrophic ways.

* * *

Elena sat with Jeremy's head pillowed in her lap. She was worried about how long he'd remained unconscious, her imagination already running wild with notions of brain haemorrhages or life threatening comas. It was approaching a half hour since she'd called Stefan and Elena could tell Amelie was getting impatient. The dead witch wasn't moving much, yet there was this powerful aura of discontent rising from her along with the pervasive odour of death. It almost seemed as if Amelie was nervous.

Elena didn't doubt for a moment that Stefan would come for her, he'd promised he would on the phone, even as he insisted she had done nothing wrong in breaking down and calling him. Still she did wonder what Amelie would do to her, or Jeremy, or even Bonnie still unconscious and bound to the altar, if Stefan didn't arrive soon.

Releasing a deep breath Elena ran the fingers of her good hand through her brother's hair and sent out a silent prayer to anyone or anything listening for her brother's safety. Her eyes continuously scanned the darkness beyond the trees for any movement. Darkness had fallen, soft as a shroud, and a rolling misty vapour seeped along the woodland floor giving the night an eerie quality. A large and rather beautiful white owl perched on the branch of one of the oaks lining the clearing, huge eyes wide and fixed seemingly directly upon Elena. She shivered and deliberately looked away from the owl. She couldn't explain it but there was almost something –familiar - about the bird, almost like she should recognise it, which was ridiculous obviously, but still…

"Stefan," she whispered barely making a sound. "Where are you?"

* * *

Enzo 'the zone' Terranova could not believe his luck. This evacuation was like Christmas and his birthday rolled into one. He and Nicky were going to make a killing out here. Jumping the wall circling the back of one of the large houses on the Old Fell's Road Enzo could almost smell the money he was going to make hocking just a fraction of the stuff he would steal. It was so easy. Most of the rich dumbasses hadn't even turned on their house alarms before getting the hell out of the path of that 'toxic cloud' Enzo couldn't see a whisper off – and he didn't count the fact that it was dark as a reason for that. Everyone knew Sheriff Forbes and the rest of those 'founding families' were full of shit. This was just more of the same, but tonight, Enzo was going to make it work for him.

With no one around (even the cops had cleared off into the woods for some reason) Enzo didn't worry about making noise as he broke the glass on the patio doors. He was a kid in a candy store, sweeping through one room after the other and taking a mental inventory of what was on offer before he went back to Nicky and the car. This was the third house he'd broken into and so far he hadn't lifted anything except a pocketful of some fat-ass trophy wife's jewellery. Instead, seeing as he had the time and perfect opportunity, Enzo was playing a different game, checking out each pad and deciding what he was going to swipe from each. They only had Nicky's beat up pick-up for transport after all, so they needed to pick wisely instead of the usual smash and grab.

Finally he decided to head back out to his brother. He was trying to decide if it would be better resource management to have Nicky hit one place while he took another, or if they should systematically clear out each house in turn as a pair. The fifty inch 3D TV in the last house would need two people to carry it, but if they split up they might be able to hit a few more houses before they had to go. It was all about the haul in the end – did they stick with the small, easy to swipe stuff, or go for the high-end larger stuff? Shit, but this was the life. He scampered lightly down the street to where Nicky had parked.

"Hey bro, we've hit the jackpot this time." Yanking open the passenger door of the rusted blue pick up Enzo barely glanced at his brother as he pulled out one of several empty sports bags they'd brought with them to transport the loot. "We could make ten grand easy; maybe more. This is our _lucky_ night." He looked up and grinned only for the grin to slip from his face when he noticed that Nicky was just sitting behind the wheel, one arm hanging out of the open window and his head slumped at an odd angle.

"Bro? Hey Nicky, you okay?" Reaching out a hand Enzo shook his brother by the arm. Nicky's body moved like a sack of jello, completely boneless, and it was then that Enzo saw the dark stains around the loose collar of his brother's t-shirt.

"What the fuck man?" Nicky's skin felt cool and clammy and it wasn't just because the night was a little chill. Enzo reached over as far as he could and turned his brother's head. "Shit!" Nicky's eyes were open and vacant and his neck was a shredded mass of semi-congealed blood. Enzo reeled back, almost falling out of the cab of the truck. He stumbled up onto the curb and his back thumped into something solid.

"Nyah!" Strong arms grabbed him and spun him around and Enzo was slammed against the side of the pick up before he could do more than blink.

"This is so _not_ your lucky night."

Too scared to breathe Enzo just had time to catch a glimpse of the pale face of man darting towards him before there were teeth tearing into his throat and a hand like steel clamped over his mouth.

* * *

Back in his college days Alaric had gone to see the Blair Witch Project. It hadn't done much for him actually. He'd been too practically minded to get sucked into the hysteria of the shaky-cam antics on the screen. Now, as he stumbled over deadfall logs and tripped into pungent toadstool patches, the beam of his flashlight bouncing over twisted tree branches and ominous shadows, Alaric found himself with a whole new appreciation for what that pair of film school auteur directors had created.

The sudden static crackle burst from Liz's radio pierced the silence like a scream in the night and Alaric was relieved to note he wasn't the only one who jumped at the sound like a startled jack rabbit.

"Team alpha, this is delta, all clear to the south."

Liz snatched at the radio, thumbing the button that would let her speak, "Copy that delta. This is alpha, nothing to report yet."

While Liz repeated the same spiel with all the other three man teams traipsing the woods Alaric sidled over to the po-faced young deputy rounding out good old 'team alpha'. Deputy Ramirez was a good looking man – or would be if his face wasn't permanently twisted into a sour scowl. So far he hadn't said a word, except when directly spoken to by the Sheriff, but the disdaining sneer on his lips every time he looked at Alaric spoke volumes.

"So," Alaric murmured in a low voice, "How long have you been on the squad?"

"Quiet," Ramirez looked at him like he was crap on the bottom of his boot. "The Sheriff is speaking."

Alaric gave the man an incredulous look and glanced over the several feet of distance between them and the Sheriff, "I'm not talking that loud."

"You shouldn't be talking at all," Ramirez snapped. "This is a police operation. Any distraction could cost lives."

"Uh-huh," Alaric could feel his lips quivering a little. "So this is your first monster hunt then?"

Ramirez clearly didn't like Alaric's intimation that he was too green to be credible. He drew himself up to his full height (which couldn't have been more than five nine at most) and attempted to look down his nose at Alaric. "You're a civilian, what do you know about anything?"

Alaric chuckled. "I know that I took out my first vampire with nothing more than a hand whittled stake and no one to back me up if things went bad." He paused smiling blandly and let his innocent eyes flit over the death grip Ramirez had on his handgun. "I also know you can _smell_ a zombie coming way before you see, or hear them. So lighten up. This might be your first rodeo but it sure isn't mine." Alaric clapped Ramirez on the shoulder, not entirely in a friendly manner, and walked back to Liz who had finished her radio communication.

"Everything okay?" he asked casually, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the beam of his flashlight. Liz was frowning.

"They should be here, but I've got officers combing through every inch of these woods and they've found nothing."

"How far do these woods stretch? I mean I know the county line cuts right through a few miles further north, but how much ground are we really going to cover?"

"As much as it takes," Liz pursed her lips. "I'll worry about county boundaries and jurisdiction later." Nodding to Ramirez to take point she and Alaric started off into the wooded darkness once again. They were about seventy yards further in when Alaric caught his first whiff of rotting flesh. A split second later the silent woods erupted with the sounds of gunfire and screaming.

* * *

Elena was splitting her attention between Amelie and the owl that continued to stare at her from the tree branch. She knew that Stefan had to make it out from Mystic Falls to Maudeville to reach her, but she was still a little worried about how long it was taking him. She wondered if the thick fog that had continued to condense along the ground since the sun had fallen was delaying him, but then dismissed the thought. Stefan was a vampire he could probably run faster than he could drive out here. The mist wouldn't bother him in the slightest.

Watching Amelie lumber around the far edges of her fire circle, tending the flames as the wet mist doused them, Elena was left with only one conclusion. There was a plan. Stefan and Damon (who Elena was convinced was back to normal, simply because thinking anything else was not an option) must have come up with some way of beating Amelie and Stefan was taking his time because it was part of their plan. Elena was fine with this in principle, but in reality she dearly wanted someone to hurry the hell up and get on with killing the witch. Her brother needed medical attention. Bonnie needed medical attention. Damn it, _she_ needed medical attention. She did not want to spend another minute stuck in the woods with an animated corpse.

Across the clearing the owl hooted, making Elena jump and jerk her wandering gaze back to the bird. She watched as the creature did the Exorcist head twist, looking behind it to the darkened trail through the brush that was almost invisible in the fog. A moment later the owl took wing, swooping low over the clearing, before rising again and disappearing into the woods on the other side of the circle. Elena watched the bird disappear, feeling a weird sense of abandonment. The owl had been with her, watching her intently, during most of her wait for Stefan. Its presence had been comforting and made her feel less alone. Reluctantly Elena turned her head back to the tree the owl had sat upon and her heart almost exploded in her chest.

"Stefan!"

He looked like a dream, or a mirage, the roiling fog reaching his knees as he stood with one hand braced against the trunk of the owl's tree and his eyes fixed unwaveringly on her. Elena half rose to her feet, only remembering Jeremy in her lap when her movement almost sent his head smacking into the hard ground. Her eyes immediately filled with tears and a piece of her heart and soul tore free of her body, desperate to reunite with him.

"Are you alright?" Stefan asked her, not even bothering to acknowledge Amelie who moved like hamstrung lightning to stand before him, separated only by the dancing ring of fire. In fact all he did was sidestep away from the tree so he could look over the dead witch's shoulder to her. "I swear to you, I'll get you all out of here."

Elena just nodded, throat clenched tight. She clutched Jeremy to her tightly and tried to tell Stefan with her eyes how much just knowing he was here helped her and that she was sorry she'd hurt him earlier. The tiny glimmer of love and warmth she saw in Stefan's shadowed eyes was answer enough that he'd understood her. Then Stefan turned his head fractionally and all the warmth left his face as he looked Amelie over.

"I know what you're planning Amelie. I know why you need Bonnie for your ritual. You want Emily back and you need a host body. All the better if it's a Bennett witch."

"What?" Elena gasped, eyes darting from Stefan and Amelie's tense standoff and over to Bonnie, insensate on the altar. Her mouth went dry. Bonnie had suffered so much because of her heritage. She'd been possessed by Emily once already, nearly killed by Damon, had her powers stripped and then, to defeat Klaus, she'd willingly taken on the combined power of her dead ancestors, the strain of which almost killed her. And now _this_? There was _no way_ Elena was going to let Amelie use Bonnie like that.

"I'm here to negotiate."

Stefan's voice snapped Elena back to attention and she watched wide eyed as he pulled out a battered leather book from inside his jacket. Amelie's zombie rocked forward a little, an outrageous amount of reaction from the corpse, and her bony arms reached scrabbling fingers for the tome even as Stefan took a step back away from her.

"Your brother's grimoire," he taunted smiling sharp and mocking. "In here is a spell to send your mangy carcass straight back to hell. It's not a Bennett spell, any witch can do it." Stefan's dark and penetrating gaze tore right through Amelie. "You can't complete your spell without Damon. You need him to summon Emily. A witch's word is her bond and Emily betrayed Damon. Even death doesn't erase that debt. But you can't control my brother anymore. When he bled himself out he broke your power over him. Damon isn't going to give himself up to you, not even for Elena." His eyes flickered to her's for a micro-second. "Not this time anyway."

Around Amelie the temperature plummeted, the flames drooped and the air shivered, leaves on the ground began to swirl and the branches of the trees scraped together as Amelie gathered her power. Yet she didn't move, didn't throw out a hand to knock Stefan flying with a spell.

"You can't touch me," he smirked, reminding Elena so forcibly of Damon in that moment that she blinked in surprise. "This magic circle you put up around the ritual site." He nodded to the ring of fire circling the clearing. "It keeps me from ripping you to shreds where you stand, but it also means you can't send your power outward. Your necromancy can't touch me."

It was then that Stefan held up his free hand and Elena had to strain her eyes to see what he was holding – it looked like a lock of hair tied with old string but she couldn't be sure in the inconstant, dancing light of the fire. Whatever the object was it had even more of an impact on Amelie than the grimoire. Her body rocked back away from the edge of the circle and, impossible as it was to tell considering the degradation of her face, Elena could still feel the sudden burst of Amelie's fear. It caught Elena by the throat like icy fingers and chilled her to the bone.

"I'm willing to trade." Stefan continued, hard, unrelenting, and resolute. "My body in exchange for Bonnie's, as well the grimoire and this lock of your own hair for Elena and her brother. I'll let you have everything; the only two things that can stop you and me as your slave. My only condition is that you come get me yourself."

"Stefan no!"

This time Elena did lurch to her feet running forward until the biting cold wave of Amelie's power knocked her to her knees again a few feet from the edge of the fire. "Stefan you can't. You can't just give yourself to her." She stared at him, desperately begging him not to do this. Damon had obviously figured out she wasn't worth the risk and now she needed Stefan to do the same.

Stefan gazed back at her serene and implacable. "Elena, trust me –this is the only way."

He turned back to Amelie, whose body looked like it was ready to fly apart as her power whipped around her like an arctic storm. He took two large steps up to his side of the fire barrier so that there was less than three feet in distance between him and Amelie. He looked the dead witch straight in the eye-sockets.

"Do we have a deal?"


	28. Chapter 28

_A/N: This is it, the final show down with Amelie and her zombie horde. I offer the standard warning for gore and extreme violence. Also this chapter is pretty much wall to wall action, with a lot of scene changes and a heck of a lot going on. Finally as FFnet screwed up with my update last time, I may not have gotten round to replying to everyone who reviewed. I apologise and promise to catch you next time. _

_Oh and there will be two more chapters after this one, which will deal with all the stelena, delena, whatever, angst of the last 28 chapters ;)_

* * *

_Bait and switch_

The sharp, echoing rapport of gunfire snapped Damon's head up from the neck of the burglar he'd ambushed. Letting the drained corpse flop to the curb he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and narrowed his eyes towards the woods. It sounded like the fun had started without him, which was just too bad.

Reaching down he threw the man's corpse into the flat bed of the pick-up and walked around to the driver's side of the cab, yanking open the door he caught the second corpse as it tumbled out. He threw it in the back with the other and unrolled the tarp sitting in the corner of the flat bed. He was about to fasten the tarp down over the bodies when he had an idea.

There were going to be a lot of bodies to dispose of by the end of the night, and for once Liz and her people weren't looking to blame it all on vampires. All the same, on the off chance someone might actually miss this pair of losers Damon went back to the cab, grabbed one of the holdalls, and returned to the corpses. He ripped their cold, dead hearts from their chests, filched a pocket knife from the skinnier one, and slit their throats for good measure, obscuring the tell-tale bite marks. It wasn't perfect. A coroner would be able to tell that these two hadn't been killed like the other zombie victims but there was a fair chance no one would bother with an autopsy, not when so many people had already died and the zombies made such good scapegoats. He dropped the hearts into the holdall and dumped it next to the bodies before pulling the tarp securely over all the evidence.

Job done; now for the fun part.

Damon turned around a full three sixty degrees, looking around until he found…a-ha, a tool shed's felt covered roof just visible poking over the top of a garden fence. Grinning brightly Damon blurred forward. Ripping the padlock loose from the shed door he almost laughed when the first thing his hungry eyes fell upon was the two foot long haft of a massive, weighted mallet. Oh he could inflict so much damage with something like that. Now if there was a chainsaw in back that would be just perfect.

While he looted the garden shed for potential weaponry Damon's thoughts drifted traitorously towards the other portion of his awesome plan. Elena. More specifically, Elena and Amelie, and the fact that right this instance Stefan was out there playing crusading hero for all his coiffed hair was worth.

Damon lost the last lingering edge of his smile. It was true that he was missing out on playing white knight to Elena's feisty damsel, but the simple fact was he had never been cut out for that shtick anyhow. That was Stefan's bag; he had the pensive brow wrinkles and self-aggrandising personality to do the role justice. Plus if Damon was going to be honest he knew that if Elena had to pick anyone to save her, it would always be Stefan. _Everything_ would always be Stefan for Elena, and so long as she was safe and sound Damon really didn't care about anything else. Stefan could handle his end of the plan and Blondie...well the jury was still out on whether Combat Barbie was up to the task, but it didn't matter anyway. Damon had made the choice to play it this way. If doing so pretty much ensured Elena would wind up alive but pissed at him, well, so what? All hail the status quo.

Shouldering his mallet and arraying his assorted implements of mass carnage about his person Damon ran his tongue over the back of his teeth, still able to taste blood. He was half expecting to feel guilty about the two lives he'd taken, the same way he'd felt sickened and guilty for killing Jessica as soon as he'd sobered up – but so far, so good. He'd been hungry, in need of the added strength killing would grant him, and they'd been convenient, it was as simple as that and Damon could not care less about their deaths if someone paid him.

Letting his senses expand and calling upon a few tricks he hadn't used in far too long Damon set off for the woods and the zombie hijinks within. Mass slaughter really was much more his forte, and tearing zombies' limb from limb would help him shake off those bad ol' desiccation blues.

All the same as a dense rolling mist rose to his command and a decidedly grouchy crow cawed at him from a nearby power pylon Damon knew damn well and good that his every step since waking from his mummification was another step away from the thing he wanted most in the world.

He kept walking anyway, because being the better man sucked like that.

* * *

"I said do we have a deal?" Stefan repeated. Amelie had yet to make a move and Stefan refused to allow the bubbling concern that she had somehow figured out the ruse from getting the better of him. If he failed to play this right then they were sunk. The entire plan hinged on his performance right now. He shifted his stance, still holding the lock of hair and the grimoire aloft while tendrils of thick grey mist rose in the air, curling around his legs to his upper thighs and obscuring most of the trails and paths beyond the clearing.

"Without Damon you can't summon Emily." Stefan pressed as Amelie wavered. He wasn't sure how he knew she was hesitating, he just did. "It doesn't matter if you have Bonnie now. None of what you've done so far matters without Damon to finish the spell."

The zombie witch swayed slightly in the tumult of her own power, but remained damnably secure on her side of the magic circle. Still he knew he had her complete attention. "If you take me," Stefan cajoled. "You have leverage to force him to help you. I'm his brother, he doesn't want me dead. Let Elena and Jeremy go…and you can have everything you want."

"Stefan – don't, what about Bonnie?" Elena immediately spoke up. She had edged on her knees as close to the fire circle as she could get, before Amelie's power pushed her back. "I won't let you give up your life or hers for mine." She said, voice ringing with conviction. It took a great deal for Stefan to ignore her. Yet there really wasn't any choice. Damon was right - for once – and this play was the only way to go. He had to get Amelie to leave the safety of her circle or no one would be getting out of this alive. Yet Amelie wasn't taking the bait.

"You're waiting for Damon." Stefan guessed watching the dead witch shrewdly. "You think this is a set-up and Damon is hiding out somewhere nearby."

Amelie's body went still and Stefan allowed himself a thin, cynical smile as his guess was proved right. He didn't fight the harsh and mirthless laugh that bubbled up from his throat. "After all you have Elena and Damon loves her." It was strange to actually say out loud what he'd known for months now. All the same he tried to ignore the almost guilty look that flashed across Elena's face as he spoke aloud the worst kept secret in Mystic Falls.

"Everyone knows my brother would give his life for love. He already did for Katherine." Stefan said softly focusing solely on Amelie. "The thing is Katherine wanted Damon to think she loved him back, it was part of her game, but Elena isn't Katherine and Damon knows she doesn't love him." Stefan turned from Amelie to look directly into Elena's wide eyes as he spoke again, "He knows she'll _never_ love him."

Elena snapped her eyes closed then, as if in pain or adamant denial. She looked down at her hands lying limply on her thighs and for just a moment Stefan forgot that he was playing a part, he forgot the plan, he even forgot Amelie. All he knew was that with one gesture Elena had just proved his words a lie. He wondered if Damon knew that. Stefan then wondered if he should feel guilty for what he was about to say. He shook his head minutely and turned back to Amelie.

"Damon's done bleeding for Elena." He said with dull finality and refused to acknowledge the way Elena recoiled slightly at his words. "He wants you dead Amelie and he really couldn't care less for Bonnie or Jeremy – so believe me when I say, without me you have no way of getting to him."

Amelie took the bait.

* * *

"Where the fuck is this mist coming from?" Ramirez snapped a hairsbreadth from complete hysteria as he and Alaric dashed through the woods towards the sounds of gunfire. Alaric just shook his head wordlessly. A thick grey mist had rolled into the woods in the last few minutes, thickening along the ground as they ran. It was so dense now that Alaric couldn't see below his mid-calf and it was still coming, pouring in from all angles.

"Beta team, can you read me? What's the situation?" Ahead of them Liz ran while shouting into her radio, the echoes bouncing back towards Alaric and the rookie deputy.

"Man down! Man down!" Someone screamed over the radio. "Christ, they're coming out of nowhere. We were ambushed. They followed us into the woods. Oh god…oh god…help!"

More gunfire ripped through the night as alpha team raced through the fog shrouded woods. Then, far worse than the mist and the gunfire, was the sound of screaming.

"Lyman!" Liz yelled into her two way radio but only received hissing silence as a response. Alpha team came to a halt at a fork in the wooded trails. The mist and darkness made navigation difficult. Liz hit the radio connect button again. "Delta, Gamma, – can you hear me?"

Another burst of static resolved itself into a different man's voice. "…alpha team…this is…gamma team. We have multiple sightings. The fuckers _played_ us. They've got us hemmed in and we're being driven deeper into the woods."

"Damn," Alaric breathed out. "I thought zombies were supposed to be dumb?"

He scanned as much of their surroundings as he could through the rising mist and took in a deep breath, not because he was out of breath from the run, but so he could get a good whiff of the air. Instantly he wrinkled his nose as the pungent stench of over-ripe garbage hit him full in the face. Grabbing for his borrowed gun he fumbled a little pulling it from his belt as a dark, lumbering form materialised through the mist directly in front of Liz.

* * *

Amelie's blood ghost erupted from inside her zombie body, breaching the magic barrier and surging forwards through the air in a blood dripping cloud. Stefan only just managed to blur out of reach, diving into the thick fog and using the trunk of a tree for extra cover. Damn it, this was not what he wanted. He needed Amelie's physical form to breach the barrier. He ducked and rolled, disappearing into the low lying mist and carpet of decomposing leaves covering the woodland floor as the blood ghost dive bombed his position. He scrambled to his feet and blurred away again as thick, dark, evil, blood splattered the tree he had been hiding behind.

"Stefan!"

Elena's shout of warning was all he needed. Again he hit the floor but this time it was a large white owl, feet stretched out before it and talons extended, that swooped down low and tore right through the blood ghost's form. The owl hooted in triumph a split second before Amelie's zombie tackled Stefan to the ground, fleshless fingers clawing at his chest intent on ripping into his flesh and soul. Stefan threw her off just as the first tendrils of magic crawled like creeping ivy over his mind.

Amelie's blood ghost recombined with her zombie body and she lunged again, throwing power out at him. He flew through the air, crashing into a tree twenty yards from the clearing. Stefan heard at least two of his ribs snap as he fell, winded, to the mist swirled ground.

The dead witch advanced on him, well and truly leaving the safety of her circle behind her. Perched on a tree branch, the white owl hooted once more, loud and clear. Stefan waited until Amelie was almost upon him before he jumped up and blurred away. Once again the witch threw a wave of power at him, knocking his feet out from beneath him. The owl screamed as he fell, diving for Amelie's head. The zombie stumbled back a step as the large bird dug fore-claws and talons into her empty eye sockets, wings beating the air furiously.

Stefan jumped up and blurred back towards the clearing and Elena.

* * *

Deputy Lyman was out of bullets. He ran through the woods, and knew in his bones that he was doing exactly what these monsters wanted. The deeper he plunged into the trees, the easier it was for the zombies to ambush him just like they had the other two members of his team. Philips and Abuwe had been good guys, solid police officers, and now Doug Lyman didn't even know if they were alive. He'd lost his radio and this freaking mist made it impossible to figure out where he was going.

Panting, throat so dry breathing made him wretch, Lyman stopped to lean against a tree. He couldn't run any more. He was done. He watched resignedly as one of the zombies chasing him crashed through the fog and brush. The zombie pointed a hand gun at him, eyes filmed and dead but fingers steady on the trigger. Lyman thought the gun was Abuwe's. He stared down the barrel of his friend's gun and waited for the end.

It didn't come. Instead a large oily black crow burst from the canopy, swooping low and knocking the gun from the zombie's hands. Lyman gaped. Since when did crows fly at night? Lyman's brain stalled completely when something he couldn't see rushed by him and the zombie was thrown into a tree. It dangled about five feet off the ground, impaled on a broken tree branch at least as thick as Lyman's own forearm. It had all happened so fast it seemed to Lyman that the zombie had jumped backwards through the air and impaled itself.

The mist swirled, the air excited by the same incredibly fast blur. Something grabbed Lyman and suddenly he was being carried through the woods so fast the air howled in his ears. The next thing he knew he was flying through thin air and landing painfully on his ass on the grass verge siding the Fell's Road. Lyman sat up and blinked, staring uncomprehendingly back at the woods.

"Doug, man, glad to see you're alright!" Philips and Abuwe ran over to him, helping him to his feet.

Doug stared at them, barely able to accept he was still alive, let alone the rest of his team. "What the hell was that?" He demanded knowing full well that he didn't really want to know.

* * *

"Elena – the hearts – you have to destroy the hearts." Stefan yelled as he saw her standing right up beside the flames palms smacking against the invisible barrier of the spelled circle as she desperately tried to get free, no doubt so she could help him. Her look of naked relief when she saw him warmed his soul immeasurably but they weren't out of danger yet. He ran up to her and came as close as he could. "Amelie's spell is in the hearts, if you destroy them it breaks the circle."

"But Amelie…?" Elena began shooting a worried look beyond him out into the fog shrouded woods.

Stefan's lips quivered upwards for just a second. "Don't worry about Amelie, everything is under control." He promised just as they both heard a sweet, distinctly female voice yell out from within the mist shroud.

"This is for throwing me into a wall you mouldy old bitch!"

Then Amelie's zombie flew out of the fog backwards hitting the ground with enough force to kill her, if she hadn't already been well and truly dead. The next moment a very familiar blonde burst out from the thick wall of mist, brandishing one of Amelie's severed arms in her hand like a club and with the big white owl perched on her shoulder.

"Caroline?" Elena exclaimed completely stunned as her friend snarled and launched herself at the zombie.

* * *

Back in the Mystic woods teams gamma and delta had combined forces to mount a defence against the zombies trying to push them deeper and deeper in the woods, and it wasn't going so well. Nightsticks and bullets didn't do much against creatures who couldn't feel pain and it was difficult to dismember a corpse when it kept moving. The impossibly dense, rolling ground fog wasn't helping matters either. Amberly had fallen over a log on the path, hidden by the mist, and almost lost his heart under a pile of zombies, and Bateman had narrowly avoided a sprained ankle when his foot landed in a rabbit hole.

Things were looking terminal until the crow arrived. The bird, which came out of the nowhere, repeatedly dive bombed the zombies and cawed warnings the six officers used as a form of zombie-detection system. As a unit they began to run in the direction the bird led them. One by one the zombies chasing them started to disappear, picked off by some unseen force that whipped through the trees and darted across the path to carry off a zombie too fast for any of the deputies to see what it was. Not that they cared. Frankly the devil himself could have come up from hell and none of Mystic Falls finest would care, so long as they were able to get out of these woods alive.

The combined forces of teams' delta and gamma burst forth of the tree line and didn't stop running until they reached the squad cars waiting by the side of the Fell's Road. Beta team stood waiting for them.

"What the hell?" Amberly exclaimed and whipped his head back towards the wood.

"Yeah," deputy Lyman nodded emphatically. "We know."

The rescued police officers all looked up as the black crow cawed loudly above their heads, almost as if it was laughing at them, before plunging back into the trees.

* * *

"I can't find the knife," Elena shouted to Stefan, scrambling on her hands and knees for the knife she'd used in her fight with Amelie earlier. In the darkness and the trails of mist the knife was lost.

"Use a rock, or a stick." Stefan insisted, pacing around the outside of the fire circle like a caged panther. "Elena I can't get in to help while those hearts are still beating."

A short ways beyond the circle Caroline fought tooth and claw against Amelie and Elena did her best to ignore the chain-saw growls and shrieks coming from that direction. Instead she staggered to her feet and ran to the far eastern side of the clearing to look for fallen branches or large stones she could use to pulverise the hearts. She'd already tried to use her one good hand and simply smash them against the side of the altar, but the organs were rubbery and thick – the heart was a muscle after all – and not at all like a blood filled water balloon as Elena had imagined. She needed a weapon to destroy them and one she could use one-handed.

In her blind haste she ended up tripping over a palm sized rock with a jagged edge and she seized it in one hand before dashing back to the altar. Bonnie and Jeremy were still unconscious and Stefan couldn't breach the barrier. It was all up to her. Meeting Stefan's loving gaze beyond the fire Elena slammed the stone down onto the first of the foul smelling, grey hearts.

"Damn it," she hissed as her aim was off and the heart bounced from the altar to the fog shrouded ground. Furious and desperate she tried stamping on it, driving her heel in and then trying to grind the hideous thing to a pulp against the hard packed ground. She jumped on the heart, kicked it and swooped down to stab it with the jagged edge of the rock until finally the thing stopped beating. She looked up at Stefan.

"Keep going Elena you're doing great." He assured her voice tight as his eyes flicked away towards Caroline and then back to her. Elena didn't dare look behind her to see how Caroline was doing. Instead she raised the rock and brought it down on another of the hearts, careful not to hit Bonnie's unconscious form with a misplaced blow. Cold dark blood spurted and arced into her face as Elena bludgeoned and stamped on one heart after another, but she didn't stop, didn't look up, until she heard Caroline scream.

* * *

"Sheriff!"

Dumping the radio and grabbing her gun from its holster in one smooth movement, Liz dropped to one knee as the zombie – a man in a hockey shirt with a bald patch – made a clumsy grab for her. As the zombie stumbled, arms clashing together bear hug fashion, Liz fired two slugs neatly into the zombie's fish-eyes. The impact of the bullets caused the zombie to stumble back just enough to give Liz room to rise up and plant a perfect karate chop to the neck and simultaneous knee to the stomach that knocked the zombie to the ground. She then drew her nightstick and brought it down on the zombie's bald head repeatedly.

"Ramirez," Liz shouted and gestured with one hand towards her deputy. Ramirez unhooked a genuine machete from his belt, pulled it loose of its chamois sheath and threw it to the Sheriff. Liz caught the blade by the handle and whipped it down on the zombie's neck, landing a decapitating blow in two swift strikes.

"Incoming," Alaric warned as five more lumbering forms wavered into visibility through the mist. Ramirez started shooting, hitting a middle aged woman with wiry salt and pepper hair right between the eyes. The woman kept coming however and Alaric darted forward to bring his night stick down on the back of her head. The blow bobbled the zombie, who teetered and stumbled onto one knee. Alaric hit her again, her skull cracking.

"Does anyone have a spare machete?" Liz threw him the blade, which Alaric caught, although he cut himself lightly on the blade.

Ramirez cried out. Another female zombie had leapt up on his back and rode the rookie deputy to the ground. Lightning fast two more walking dead rushed Liz as she turned to help Ramirez. She fought them off her, pistol whipping one and driving her night stick into the kneecap of another, but she wasn't fast enough to stop the female zombie from slamming a rock into the back of Ramirez's skull.

"You bastard," Letting out an inarticulate roar Liz lunged for the female zombie flinging the corpse off Ramirez. She then grabbed the dead woman's head, wrenched open gaping jaws and fired into her mouth until there wasn't much left of the back of the zombie's skull. The creature fell backward to the ground, almost instantly swallowed in the fog. Alaric rushed forward to help Liz haul a groggy Ramirez to his feet.

"We need to get out of here."

They started in the direction they hoped would take them back to the Fell's Road, Ramirez almost complete dead weight between them. They only managed to get a few yards away from the fork junction before more zombies, moving fast and lurching, converged on them from all sides. Behind their backs the zombies they had brought down but not stopped began to rise, headless but still mobile. Alpha team were fully surrounded by at least a dozen zombies.

* * *

Caroline Forbes had never considered herself to be a violent person. The only fight she'd ever been in had been in fourth grade when Sue Carson had told her she had a funny looking nose and Caroline had been so upset she'd kicked Sue's shin and pulled her hair. There'd also been that time when she, Elena, and Bonnie had been fourteen and Caroline had swiped a bottle of vodka from her dad. Elena had thrown up all over Caroline's favourite shoes and, drunk off her ass, Caroline had slapped her. Bonnie had then slapped Caroline and the three girls had ended up rolling around on Caroline's bedroom floor alternatively biting, scratching, and hurling on each other until her mom had come up and chewed them all out for being so irresponsible.

What was happening now was nothing like those other fights, but then Caroline wasn't really anything like that other girl any more either. Right now, almost dizzy on her own power –most of which she would never have known about if Damon hadn't shown her – Caroline didn't sweat the loss of her innocence at all. Instead she lunged forward flying at Amelie and bludgeoning the skanky corpse with her own severed arm.

"This is what you get for messing with my friends!" She snarled flinging aside the severed limb and reaching clawed fingers for Amelie's shrivelled chest. Damon had given her tips on the best technique for ripping out the hearts of prone, standing, and airborne victims and she was really looking forward to trying them out. She didn't even care about her manicure getting ruined. Instead Caroline was all about the kill.

Unfortunately Amelie wasn't easy meat. A wave of power knocked Caroline flying backwards and she hit the ground hard on her sphincter. She leapt to her feet in time to be knocked into a tree.

"You bitch!" Her jacket ripped as Amelie used her witchy-hoodoo to levitate Caroline until her feet dangled several feet off the ground. The witch clenched her one remaining fist, crushing Caroline's throat. Caroline bared her teeth, fangs fully extended, and kicked her feet, reaching out with her power to summon the owl to her. The night bird flew for Amelie's head again, bursting out of the fog from behind the dead witch. With only one arm Amelie had to drop her hold on Caroline to send a wave of power towards the owl.

"Don't you dare hurt snowy," Caroline hit the ground feet first and wasted no time charging forward to tackle Amelie around the waist.

Zombie and baby-vampire rolled around on the mist shrouded ground, tussling for dominance. Caroline grabbed for Amelie's chin, curled the fingers of one hand around the witch's bottom jaw and tore it loose with one hard yank. Amelie retaliated by sending a surge of cold, biting power spiking through Caroline's brain. Black and red dots danced before her eyes and Caroline's grip on the dead witch went slack.

Amelie rolled to her feet, missing the lower half of her rotted face and one arm, but not anywhere near defeated yet. Calling forth a huge wave of icy power Amelie threw Caroline straight towards the fire.

* * *

"Oh this isn't going to end well," Alaric murmured eyeing the zombies as they dragged themselves closer. He and Liz let go of the barely conscious Ramirez so they could draw weapons and face the zombies.

One of the zombies, a kid in a baseball cap, was the first to come at them. He ran full tilt at Alaric, dropping into a base stealers slide at the last minute and knocking Alaric's legs out from under him – just narrowly avoiding breaking his shin bone. He fell, cursing with the adolescent zombie's teeth clamped to his leg. Alaric rolled across the ground, kicking and scratching like a grade-schooler in a playground tussle until he managed to dislodge the kid zombie. He staggered to his feet and slammed the nightstick into the head of an African American zombie in a loud Hawaiian shirt as he charged.

The rest of the horde had closed in on Liz who was standing her ground before her downed deputy like a mama bear protecting her young. Liz held the blood dripping machete in her hands but she was being pushed back all the time. Alaric waded into the fray and together they kept the zombies off Ramirez until one zombie, a short, slender female with dreadlocked hair and a six inch kitchen knife, managed to break through Liz's guard and stabbed her in the back.

"Sheriff," Alaric slammed his fist into the face of the knife wielding zombie and grabbed hold of Liz, who had slumped to her knees, one hand curling around her body to cover the bleeding wound close to her kidney. Liz looked up at him with pain bright eyes.

"Go," she ordered. "You're a civilian Saltzman. You need to get out while you still can." Then she sagged sideways, eyes closing and head lolling.

"Yeah," Alaric snorted watching the zombies as they came together in a loose pack and circled closer. "That's really not an option."

The knife wielding zombie jumped forward, knife upraised in classic slasher movie fashion. Alaric was waiting for the moment the knife would find a home in the top of his skull, but that didn't happen. Instead the wide, flat head of a garden trowel zinged through the air, ninja shuriken style, and lopped the zombie's hand, holding the knife, clean off.

"Score," Crowed a very familiar, incredibly smug voice. Then a dark blurred form ploughed into the loose pack of zombies sending them scattering like nine pins in all directions.

* * *

Thrown through the air Caroline experienced that weird sensation of time slowing down around her even as she was powerless to stop her forward momentum towards the magical fire barrier. She figured that as well as being crispy fried the barrier would smash every bone in her body when she hit, so she wouldn't even be able to crawl out of the flames. Stefan would be so disappointed in her, and Damon, well Damon would just smirk and tell everyone (assuming Amelie didn't go on to kill all her friends anyhow) that he'd been right all along and she really was useless.

"Caroline!"

She heard Elena's scream as time caught up with her. She saw the fire racing towards her (or rather saw herself hurtling towards the fire) and then Stefan was there, blurring into the space between her body and the flames and catching her before she crashed straight into the barrier. She hit him with all the force Amelie could muster but Stefan's extra hundred and fifty years of undead existence paid off, because although they both hit the ground perilously close to the flames, Stefan managed to keep his feet grounded to the spot.

"Oof," Caroline grunted as she disentangled from Stefan who helped her up. She managed a sunny smile. "Thanks. I thought I was toast." She turned back towards Amelie just in time for the witch to try her blood fountain trick again.

"Stefan move!"

Twisting around to shove Stefan out of the way (the blood would screw him up as badly as it had Damon if it touched him) Caroline threw herself forward. The blood hit her like a power hose and tasted beyond gross, but Caroline didn't let it faze her. She grabbed for Amelie, grappling with the zombie and driving her back away from Stefan and the circle. They bounced off a couple of trees as they fought but finally Caroline gained the upper hand.

Clasping the zombie around the throat one handed Caroline grabbed Amelie's one remaining arm just above the elbow with her free hand and in four harsh tugs, wrenched the limb from Amelie's shoulder socket. Throwing the rotted limb aside Caroline flung Amelie across the clearing, flicked her blood slicked hair out of her face and stalked forward ready to take care of business once and for all.

* * *

Alaric swung the large mallet down onto the chest of a downed zombie and tried not to think of the similarities between this and playing whack-a-mole at a carnival. Damon had handed him the mallet and tossed him a perfunctory greeting along the lines of: "close your mouth Ric you look like an idiot", some five minutes or so earlier, but since then conversation had given way to copious amounts of extreme violence.

Of course violence just happened to be one of Damon Salvatore's favourite pastimes. In five minutes alone the two of them (but mostly Damon) had decimated the zombie horde. Damon in particular seemed to be taking great, almost obsessive, pleasure in the carnage. Pulling the mallet head out of the ruin of the zombies caved in chest Alaric looked up and winced as Damon rammed yet another zombie torso onto a convenient tree branch like some incredibly disturbing, still wriggling, Christmas tree ornament. He vaguely wondered if Damon was a fan of Vlad the Impaler's.

"Aren't you supposed to be a dried up mummy?" Alaric asked, mostly so he didn't have to think about all the twitching severed limbs littering the clearing as Damon buzzed to and fro at ridiculous speed gleefully tearing zombies apart. Damon stopped his whirlwind assault long enough to give Alaric a withering look while he chucked a necrotic foot casually over his shoulder.

"That was this afternoon," He drawled. Ignoring the mostly dismembered zombie he'd crippled Damon blurred over to Alaric, grabbed the zombie who had been attempting to sneak up on his blindside by the throat and threw it down on the ground so Ric could bring the mallet down on the zombie's spine.

"Okay," He paused to wipe away sweat and far nastier stuff from his brow before it could drip into his eyes. "And you're here now because...?"

"It's part of the plan." Damon rolled his eyes and darted towards Liz who was propped unconscious against the trunk of a birch tree. "Amelie used her zombies to kidnap Elena, Jeremy, and Bonnie. She wants to use Bonnie to resurrect mommy dearest Emily." The bifurcated top half of a zombie had managed to drag itself towards Liz and Damon grabbed hold of it by the trailing section of a long cord that definitely was _not_ a belt and yanked it away from the sheriff. He then distractedly threw the legless zombie back onto the pile of zombie bits. "Plan kick-Amelie's-ass-back-to-hell involves taking out the zombies so Amelie can't use them to A, destroy the town, and B, resurrect herself like she did after I broke free of her control."

"Right," Alaric said not really understanding any of what Damon had said but not wanting to argue over trivial details. At least not when there were more pertinent issues to resolve. "That doesn't explain why _you_ are _here_ when you should be _there_." Alaric grabbed one of the mallet downed zombies by the ankles and started dragging him towards the body part mountain.

Damon frowned and took the zombie from him hurling it up on the top of the large pile. "You'd prefer it if I'd let you be ripped apart?" He asked obnoxiously, rather obviously evading the actual question.

"Not what I meant." Alaric gave him a droll look. There were no more zombies pouring through the woods and he noticed that the mist had begun to dissipate. He gave Damon a quizzical look. "What I meant was, shouldn't you be off rescuing Elena?"

Damon gave him an oblique look and a brusque shrug. "Stefan and Blondie have it covered."

Alaric's eyebrows shot up and he was about to say something more on that matter when he noticed something. "Uh…is it me or have the…bits…stopped moving?" Awkwardly he gestured to the zombie mould. It did seem that the undead mass of severed limbs and headless torsos had stopped squirming and now appeared a lot more dead and inanimate than they had a minute prior.

Damon cocked his head as if listening, frowned, and then reached into the pile before pulling out a severed arm. Alaric swiftly turned his head away when Damon gave the arm an experimental wiggle to check for resistance.

"Huh," the vampire exclaimed sounding both pleased and surprised. "What do you know? She actually did it." Damon shook his head and laughed shortly. "Way to go Caroline."

* * *

Caroline wrenched her arm out of the hole she'd driven into Amelie's shrivelled chest with her fingers still hooked around the dead witch's slimy heart. Staring down at the grey, rotted looking pound of flesh she grimaced.

"Ugh… it stinks."

Hastily she dropped the organ and stamped on it hard with her kitten heeled boot, grinding in her heel until the heart burst over the leaf strewn ground. Caroline watched, dazedly, as Amelie's broken body thumped uselessly to the floor beside the ruin of her heart.

"Caroline."

Turning around at the sound of her name, Caroline only just stopped herself from flinging Elena into a tree as her friend threw her arms around her in a huge hug. "God, Caroline. You did it. You beat her." Elena looked up with tears standing in her shining eyes and a smile on her face. "You were amazing." She told her while Caroline tried in vain to understand what was happening. "You _are_ amazing Caroline. You saved Bonnie. You saved Jeremy. You saved all of us."

"I did?" Caroline asked staring at her right hand and forearm slicked up to the elbow in zombie-witch blood and gore. Now that the bloodlust and adrenaline and all the rest of the stuff Damon had told her about was fading Caroline just felt dizzy, confused, and a little barfy. She couldn't even manage to hug Elena back properly. She glanced back at Amelie's mouldy old corpse and then to Elena once more.

"Really?" She asked just to be sure. "I didn't screw up? Because I'm kind of way better at screwing things up, you know, and Damon totally thought I was going to mess up and get killed even though he showed me how to do the fog and bird thing, but then he's a jerk anyway and…"

A warm hand closed around her shoulder and Caroline stopped babbling and looked up to see Stefan smiling at her. He stepped up to her and Elena, gently pulling Elena back into the curve of his free arm even as he squeezed Caroline's shoulder reassuringly.

"You didn't screw up Caroline. Elena's right. You were amazing."

Caroline smiled slowly at first but then the smile grew large and proud. She looked beyond her friends to the clearing where the fire was out and Jeremy was helping a still frail looking Bonnie walk towards them. They were both pale and dazed looking, but they were smiling.

Caroline watched the witch approach almost pensively. She and Bonnie were mostly okay now, but she was still a vampire and Bonnie tended to look down on vampires when they acted like vampires and Caroline had definitely got in touch with her inner bloodsucker tonight.

Bonnie met Caroline's eyes directly and stepped forward, away from Jeremy's supportive arm. "Thank you Caroline. I owe you my life." She whispered hoarsely hugging Caroline as tightly as Elena had. "Amelie put a spell on me. I couldn't move, couldn't even open my eyes, but I could hear everything that was going on. I thought for sure I was dead."

Caroline swallowed around the huge lump in her throat. "Hey, that's what friends are for, right?"

Jeremy stepped forward then, detaching himself from his sister and her fussing. "Thanks for the save, Caroline, you're kind of awesome." He told her with a bashful grin.

"Yeah," Caroline laughed even as big splashy tears rolled down her cheeks. "I am kinda awesome." She turned around to look down on Amelie's corpse. "Rot in hell Amelie Bennett. _Loser_."


	29. Chapter 29

_Cold and broken Hallelujah _

Damon arrived in the Maudeville clearing to find that the party had finished without him but that he was still just in time to have his heart ripped out –metaphorically speaking.

Caroline was dead asleep, head pillowed on Stefan's folded jacket, while Bonnie was chanting over a smouldering pile of ashes with Baby-bro Gilbert hovering uselessly nearby. At first, however, all Damon saw was Elena wrapped in his brother's embrace. He stopped dead, almost stumbling a step as he came to an abrupt halt, heart clenching in his chest. Elena and his brother were locked at the lips like lives depended on their ability to tongue wrestle. Logically he knew that nothing about this scene should surprise him, or still hold the power to hurt him. He even knew that he'd invited just this eventuality when he'd decided to assign himself the inglorious task of taking out the zombies and saving the lives of Mystic Falls finest instead of riding to the rescue with the rest of the cavalry. Still logic could go fuck itself because Damon did not care. He was tired of this crap. He was tired of always _feeling_ like crap.

He made himself look away from his brother and his brother's girl and instead made a bee-line for Judgy and her boy-toy. As he walked those few feet towards Bonnie he kept waiting for Elena to notice his arrival and hated himself for being so terminally pathetic.

"All done?" He asked, maybe a bit more loudly than need be, once bonnie had stopped chanting. There was a vaguely human sized char mark in the scraggy grass and the reek of magic and burned hair hung heavy in the air. Damon eyed the dying embers and charcoal dust with quiet relish poking at it with the toe of his boot.

Bonnie gave him a long and unloving look. "I sent Amelie's spirit on, yes." She clutched Ambrose's grimoire to her chest. "Why did you have this?" She demanded without actually accusing him outright of stealing from her dead warlock forebear. Damon rolled his eyes and walked past her, swinging the holdall bag he'd brought from his 'borrowed' pick-up onto the top of the makeshift altar.

"It was given to me." He told her honestly and began to shovel the pulverised bits of tissue and valve into the bag. Once Liz got out of hospital she'd want evidence that the witch was gone. Hopefully a few hearts and a nifty cover story, wherein Damon heroically offed the witch in the Maudeville woods all by himself, would be enough to appease her. He glanced back at Bonnie and more particularly the tome she held, "On second thought, give that back."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him. "This belonged to one of my ancestors; a Bennett. It doesn't belong to you."

"No," Damon stalked back to Bonnie. Today had been a very long day and he was in no mood to screw around with one uppity teenage witch. "It belonged to Ambrose; who gave it to _me_. If he'd wanted a Bennett to have it he'd have bequeathed it to his own damn kids, before he let his sister _rip his heart out_." Damon stared Bonnie down and let her see that he was so through playing games right now it wasn't even funny.

"Give it back." He ordered quietly. He didn't roll his eyes, or invade her space (much) or do any of the things he did when he was trying to intimidate Bonnie without actually intimidating her. He wasn't grandstanding and he wasn't prepared to pretend that he and the witch were on an equal footing right now.

Bonnie frowned losing some of the confidence in her stance. Her grip on the grimoire loosened and her next words were a tad less belligerent, "Why would he give it to you?"

"I don't know," Damon said flatly and yanked the book out from Bonnie's arms too fast for her to see let alone react. He was across the other side of the clearing by the altar while Bonnie was still blinking down at her empty hands. "Why don't you whip out a Ouija board and ask him?"

He smirked at her when she looked up and glared at him and braced himself for the aneurysm that passed for witty repartee where Bonnie was concerned. None was forthcoming but Damon accredited this to Bonnie being tired rather than the idea that she might actually be less inclined to be a bitch to him right now than she usually was.

"Oh and Bonnie," he chirped as he roughly shoved the grimoire into an outside pocket of the holdall. "You might want to think about giving Blondie some of your blood." He nodded to the unconscious and exhausted girl without turning around. "She used a lot of energy saving your ass and she needs to feed. Witch blood has that extra _kick _to put the pep back in her step."

He cocked his head and waited for the (possibly profanity laden) reply but instead a slim olive toned hand landed on his arm. Immediately he tensed, even before he heard _her_ voice.

"Damon."

Turning around slowly Damon faced Elena. She stood before him with her tender eyes and resolute tilt of the chin and, of course, his brother at her side.

"Elena." He tried for glib and chipper but somehow just sounded tired. He didn't look at Stefan at all.

Elena hugged him. Slim arms wrapping around his waist, face pressing into the crook of his neck and shoulder for just a second, lithe young body pushed against him. He felt her squeeze him tight, he heard the hitch in her breath as she breathed against him. "I'm glad you're alright." She murmured, breath tickling his ear. "Don't do that again, okay? I don't want to lose you for real."

Inside his head he heard laughter; dark, manic, insanely bitter laughter. _Oh yes, _a cruel voice in his hindbrain crowed. _She doesn't want to lose you, but she doesn't actually _want _you either. Fuck, this girl's worse than Katherine. Watch, in a minute she'll quit hugging you and go straight back to Stefan's arms._

Roughly Damon shoved Elena away from him. She stumbled and if Stefan hadn't been standing right there, like a good little attendant boyfriend, she might have fallen. Damon couldn't make himself care. There was just nothing left. It was all too much.

"Damon?" Elena blinked doe eyes at him, confused and hurt and worried and Damon almost wanted to scream, or run, or shove wood splinters into his eyeballs, because fucking seriously! When he'd walked into this clearing she'd been massaging Stefan's tonsils with her tongue. She hadn't even _noticed_ him. She might not love him but would it kill her to show him some damned respect?

"My ring," he said gruffly holding out one bloodstained hand, and wondered about the symbolism in that, because _of course _Stefan's own hands remained blessedly clean.

"What?"

Elena was giving him that look that spoke of affronted disappointment and burgeoning suspicion and the monster stirred in the back of his mind, whispering to him that enough was enough. Yes, he loved this girl, yes he had no way of _stopping_ loving this girl, but was he really going to spend the rest of his existence (or at least the rest of Elena's life) trailing after her like a lovelorn puppy on the faint hope that one day she'd toss him a bone?

Once upon a time he'd told this girl, in no uncertain terms, that he would always choose her. He'd told her knowing that she wouldn't make the same choice for him. Oh sure, he made her shortlist of people she would risk her life to protect, but considering her fetish for needless self-sacrifice that wasn't all that much of an accolade. On a good day he figured he ranked about joint sixth on Elena's list of people who matter, coming in after Jeremy, Stefan, Jenna, Bonnie, and Caroline, but sharing priority with Ric and, god help him, that stupid boy Matt. On a bad day he wondered how long the list was and just hoped Elena valued his existence a little more than she did dearest Uncle Daddy. He'd been able to live with all that though, because even being on the long list was better than he rightly deserved.

Not anymore. Not when he had nothing left to give and she was still silently demanding more from him with those melted chocolate eyes of hers. Damon found that he really didn't care that he was the bad and worthless brother. He didn't care that he deserved worse than to be treated like the newest vampire accessory every high school senior needed, to be discarded at her convenience. He'd had enough. Right here, right now. The well had run dry and he was done.

"My ring," he ground out again around the acidic anger making his teeth ache. "You stole it from me when you vervained me in my god damn sleep and I. Want. It. Back."

His hands moved of their own volition then and he'd yanked the fastened chain over the top of her head, where it tangled in her hair for a second, before he knew what he was doing. As Elena flinched back into Stefan's oh so protective embrace Damon unlatched the chain, slipped his ring off, and shoved it securely back on the middle finger of his left hand.

"Here," He threw the vervain locket back to his brother who caught it while giving him a look that said he was scum of the earth. Damon ignored him because it wasn't just Elena he was angry with. Instead he grabbed up the holdall and strode back to Amelie's ashes.

"Move, I got this," he told the other Gilbert and crouched down to start shovelling up the witch's still warm ashes.

"They need to be..." Bonnie began but he interrupted her.

"Scattered over running water; yeah, I know."

His hands shook as he scooped up Amelie's remains and poured them into yet another compartment of the bag, keeping them separate from the bits of heart lying in the bottom of the holdall. He was so angry he couldn't see straight, the sort of anger that had sent him spiralling into murderous fits in the past, but not now. Before he'd felt like he was falling into a swirling vortex of black and red fury. He had literally lost himself in his rage, feeling like he was coming undone at the seams. It was different this time. Now he knew exactly who and what he was. Now he was in control and he owned his anger instead of the other way around. It still burned like a sonofabitch though.

"Go," he snapped when he sensed someone, he didn't know or care who, approach him. He might be in control but that didn't mean he felt like being provoked. The desire to just tear the world apart like it never ceased to tear him down was still very strong. He just didn't want to give in this time, because in the end the world always won and he always lost.

There was a general shifting of bodies behind him and he sensed Bonnie and Jeremy moving away (no doubt baby-bro Gilbert was remembering what happened the last time he got in Damon's way when he was royally pissed) but it wasn't until Stefan crouched down to lift Caroline's insensate body into his arms that Damon looked up from the ashes smeared all over his bloody hands.

Elena was standing not six feet away from him. She was pale, her hair wildly dishevelled, and she was still wearing the shirt she'd borrowed from him when they were trapped together in the boarding house. He could see hurt written all over her face. She held her vervain locket clutched in her hand and she stared at him with wounded eyes. In that moment he believed that she might actually need him, that she might really have forgiven him all his sins against her. In that moment he believed that she might actually care.

It was a pity then that he didn't anymore.

"Go home Elena." He said voice grating. He wanted to add that there was nothing here for her. That he was all ashes and blood and always had been. He wanted to tell her that nothing had changed and he still loved and adored her. He would kill, maim, pillage, slaughter and die for her. He would choose her above all things no matter what but right now, right here, what he needed most was for her to leave him the hell alone because he just couldn't do this now. He'd pushed, he'd fought, he'd made the _better _choices and it changed nothing. Even when he was better he wasn't good enough. He wasn't what she wanted and he couldn't keep bleeding like this. He didn't say any of that though. Because, one way or the other, it had all been said and just like everything else he did – none of it mattered.

Elena wrapped her arms around herself and bit her lip. He saw her hesitate. He saw her think of something to say. He swore he almost saw the words she didn't actually speak in her eyes. Then he saw her walk away. He watched her back as she walked away from him towards where Stefan waited with Caroline. He felt the weight of his brother's gaze heavy on his conscience. He forced himself to look at Stefan, forced himself to see the guilt, the suspicion, the traitorous hope and expectation all writ large upon his brother's face.

"Go." He repeated voice low in warning because he would not beg. He turned back to his ashes and dead flesh and looked at the filth covering his hands, the blood ingrained in the lines of his palms, the ashes under his nails. He didn't look up again until he could no longer hear the sound of Elena leaving him behind.

* * *

Silence reigned supreme as Stefan drove Elena and Caroline home. Bonnie and Jeremy had elected to wait for Alaric to come pick them up as there wasn't room for all of them in Stefan's car. There was only just room for the three of them and Caroline probably would have complained a lot more about being stashed in back if she'd been awake. Stefan hoped Caroline had enough blood bags hidden at home because she was going to be starving when she woke up.

It had started to rain. Big fat droplets splashed down onto the windshield as Stefan sped down the quiet county road. Soon the windshield glass rippled like a waterfall and Stefan flicked on the wipers. He couldn't bring himself to look over at Elena. He could already smell her tears and he knew she was crying silently even as she stared sightlessly out of the rain swept windshield.

He didn't need to ask why she cried. He just wished she'd stop.

After Amelie had finally been defeated, after he'd made sure Caroline was okay even if she had fallen into a deep sleep, and given Bonnie the things she needed to exorcise Amelie's spirit for good Stefan had turned to Elena and more or less begged her to take some of his blood to heal her broken wrist. They'd argued about it and Elena had been mad at him for his blatant deception, but eventually she'd agreed that it would be too much trouble explaining a broken wrist so she'd drunk from him. He'd kissed her then because he loved her and he was grateful to her for understanding and because he'd been worried sick about her and needed to hold her close. He hadn't heard Damon arrive until it was too late. He'd look up from Elena and seen Damon just standing there. He'd seen the unguarded look on his brother's face. He'd seen the defeat, the bleak acceptance.

Stefan had never before felt guilty about his relationship with Elena, even when it became obvious that Damon loved her too. He didn't have any reason to be guilty. He hadn't stolen Elena from his brother; Damon had no prior claim. This wasn't anything like Katherine who had toyed with them both. He and Elena had been a couple before Damon developed feelings for her. Damon knew all this. It wasn't Stefan's intention to hurt Damon with the reality of his and Elena's relationship but it wasn't as though Damon hadn't known that reality all along. It was his choice to stay.

It had been Damon's choice to send Stefan to rescue Elena too. Damon could have gone with him and Caroline. Instead he'd chosen to save the lives of people who he would usually write off as 'collateral damage'. Even Alaric, perhaps Damon's only genuine friend, was expendable compared to Elena in Damon's mind. Yet Damon had made sure that it would be Stefan there to embrace Elena first; Stefan standing with the winning side as the dust settled, able to take credit for a plan not his own. _I don't mind being the bad guy. _Damon had told him once in a moment of rare unembellished honesty. _But I will be the one to save her. _In his mind's eye Stefan kept seeing the look Damon had given him as he'd knelt down and started sifting through the pieces of bone and ash; quiet, remote, not asking for anything, angry and bitter and disappointed but only with himself.

Damon had given up. Damon who had spent one hundred and forty-six years fighting for a woman who didn't want him, who only ever used him and now he was giving in. All his brother had ever done was fight and rail and rage against the world and tonight Stefan had seen it, seen the moment Damon stopped even trying.

...and Stefan had just walked away.

"No."

Slamming his foot down on the brake pedal he brought the car to a skidding halt in the rain. Caroline moaned as her body was thrown off the backseat and onto the floor and Elena had to brace her hands on the dashboard as she was jerked forward. She turned to stare at him, wide eyed and startled as the rain drummed down on them incessantly.

"Stefan what are you...?" Elena asked him, her voice dull. He could still taste her tears.

Gritting his teeth Stefan started the car again and swung it around in a sharp u-turn. Caroline was thrown around in back again and Elena had to grab the door handle to stop herself being flung into him as Stefan gunned the engine and started back the way they had come.

"We left him Elena." Gripping the steering wheel tight enough to dimple the leather covered metal Stefan swallowed thickly. "We fucking _left him_ sitting in the dust." The car aquaplaned over a particularly wet patch of the road but Stefan didn't slow down. He couldn't because he knew he was fighting more than just time right now. He was fighting history. He was fighting against a whole epoch of choices that had swung one way and only one way for the entire course of his and Damon's life.

"We're the only people in the world he loves," Stefan whispered so softly he wasn't sure Elena could hear him. "And we just walked away."

The headlights of Alaric's jeep shone like twin haloes through the torrential rain as Stefan pulled the car over and killed the engine. He turned to Elena feeling almost frenzied, feeling like someone had staked him, but the pain was liberating because for once it came from a better place. His breath caught in his throat, tight and shallow, and he reached across the seats to clasp Elena's cold hand in his.

"I love you Elena," he told her meaning it more in this instance than ever before. "I can't bear the thought of losing you...but right now I'm not the one you should choose." He looked straight into her eyes and willed her to understand what he was asking, willed her to take on the burden of one hundred and fifty years of pain, betrayal, loss and disappointment and shatter it to dust. "What we feel doesn't betray anyone. But lying, or hiding it, does."

"Stefan..." Elena was choking on sobs and he could feel it, feel the love she had for him and he knew it was real. He also knew that she loved his brother too. He didn't want to be her excuse anymore. He didn't want to be the reason his brother never had the chance to feel what it truly meant to have someone love him, and care for him, and need him.

"When it's real," he whispered as the first tears fell, "you _never_ walk away."

Then he shoved open his car door and got out pulling the lever to push his seat forward so he could reach in the back to pull Caroline's sleeping form out. He didn't look as Elena threw herself out of her door and started running straight into the dark woods. He just walked over to a confused Alaric leaning out of his car window and let the rain mask the tears gliding down his cheeks.


	30. Chapter 30

_A/N: Firstly thanks to everyone who responded to the last chapter; I'm sorry for all the tears, but if it helps I cried while writing it! Anyway I have some (good?) news. This is NOT the last chapter after all. I realised after writing chapter 29 that I wasn't going to tie all my loose ends up in a nice even 30 chapters. So before you all hate on me for the meanest cliffhanger ever – remember –this is not the end ;)_

* * *

_Lost forever?_

She was too late.

The dark trees closed in on Elena, the rain lashing down through the canopy of trees overhead and slicing across her skin cold and biting. Her head throbbed with exhaustion, panic, and the after effects of the blood Stefan had made her drink. Night blind and lost the Maudeville woods formed an impenetrable barrier of blackness in all directions, boxing her in and inducing claustrophobia even outdoors. Her tired eyes swirled with black and white dots, shading into a violent kaleidoscope of grey as she struggled through the undergrowth already knowing she was too late. She could feel something precious slipping through her fingers like sand through an hour glass and there was nothing she could do.

"Damon," She shouted into the rain, knowing she was lost and alone and that she'd stumbled too far off the trail to ever find her way back out of these dark woods. Her cry was swallowed up by the wet night. The only sound was the slurring susurrus of the rain. Yet she kept hoping. He would come for her, some part of her brain kept insisting. No matter how mad he was, no matter how many times she shoved him away, or refused to smile when he went out of his way to make her laugh. He would still come when she needed him.

_I will always choose you_.

She waited but the woods remained a closed box, holding her captive, and he didn't come for her even when she shouted his name again. He didn't appear out of the walls of black closing in to mock her for getting lost in the woods like a silly girl, or ask her where 'saint Stefan' was. He didn't make some crack about getting a better boyfriend who wouldn't abandon her in the dark, and as it happened, he was in the market for some arm-candy so how about it? He didn't even appear like a cold faced ghost, eyes blazing pain and body almost vibrating with the need to lash out.

He was gone. She was too late.

_God._ Why hadn't she laughed more at his snark? Why hadn't she let herself enjoy being around him when he was fun and flirty and so focused on making her happy that the whole world could have burned down and he wouldn't have cared? Why hadn't she admitted to him, _just once_, that she wasn't sorry to have him in her life?

"I'm sorry." She whispered into the sodden dark.

What she and Damon had shared had never been easy, or even particularly happy. It had been awkward and difficult and made little sense. It had been dangerous and filled with dark undercurrents of hurt and need and some indefinable magnetism that she had always resented. Damon didn't so much fit her life as hijack her routine and turn everything upside down. He'd also made her laugh when she'd felt like cracking and fought for her tooth and nail. He'd let her see so deep inside and trusted her in ways he didn't trust anyone else. And now he was gone and she really had no one to blame but herself.

"Elena?" Stefan swept forward, a pale grey blur rushing forth from the darkness. Elena knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"He's gone." She said speaking for him.

"Ric saw him drive off as he arrived." He pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm sorry."

Elena pushed herself away from him. "Tomorrow," She said through chattering teeth. "We'll talk to him tomorrow."

It was dark and her eyelashes were so clumped with moisture that it was like looking at Stefan through black liquid lenses, but all the same she caught the look in his eyes. The look that said they were both lying to themselves if they thought it would be that easy.

There wasn't going to be any tomorrow, at least not for her and Damon.

* * *

"Damon, if you get this message just...call okay? I get that you don't want to talk to me, but at least let someone know you're alright. It's been five days."

Huffing out a breath of exasperation Stefan disconnected the call, staring at the blank screen of his phone for a moment as if it waiting for answers. He raked a hand through his short hair and shoved the phone back into his pants pocket, pacing the gloomy interior of the boarding house parlour. The glaziers were supposed to be coming in an hour or so to fit new windows and Stefan was glad, the boards up all over the house made the place feel like a cave.

The last few days had been rough. Stefan had been fielding calls from the sheriff and mayor Lockwood, both of whom were eager to talk to Damon and weren't buying the 'family emergency out of town' excuse Stefan had cobbled together to explain Damon's absence. In fact Stefan knew the situation was getting beyond a joke when the bartenders at the Grill, newly refurbished and re-opened after the fire, started asking after Damon, and most particularly whether he'd found some other bar in some other restaurant to spend his free time propping up.

Elena was the worst of it. When Alaric had told Stefan that he and Elena were too late and Damon had already left the woods in a beat up pick-up truck, Stefan had run into the woods to find Elena, soaked through and standing alone and inconsolable under the trees. They'd driven for over an hour along the rain swept roads of Maudeville looking for a rusty blue pick-up, in the vain hope that they could catch up with Damon as he disposed of Amelie's remains. In the end Stefan made the choice to give up when Elena became car sick with sheer exhaustion. The situation had been futile, might have been futile from the very beginning.

When Damon failed to return home to the boarding house Stefan was not surprised. At first he'd hoped that maybe Damon had gone somewhere close by to get his head together, calm down, figure things out, and that he'd be back in a day or two. Then he'd remembered this was _Damon_ and Damon didn't really do quiet contemplation. Stefan had been checking daily police reports and newscasts in the surrounding area for any missing people or 'animal attacks' because he knew Damon's usual manner of venting negative emotion could be hazardous to the native population of wherever he was at, but so far there was nothing. Either Damon was bucking his own trend or he'd long since left the state.

The door chime shook him from his thoughts and, glancing swiftly at the grandmother clock, Stefan went to answer the door. It was still too early for the glaziers and Stefan could only hope it wasn't Sheriff Forbes again. He knew Damon liked the sheriff and she was Caroline's mom, but they'd had close calls with the woman and her anti-vampire agenda before. Plus Stefan couldn't shake the feeling that the sheriff was suspicious about Damon's disappearance. The idea that she might suspect Stefan of foul play was so bitterly funny it was difficult to keep his patience with the woman when she called.

It wasn't the sheriff at the door.

"Elena," Stefan absorbed the sight of her, eating it up as he always did. They'd seen each other at school and hung out between classes as they always did in the last few days but it hadn't been the same. Elena had been hesitant to spend time with him out of school and had been deliberately avoiding being alone with him. He didn't entirely blame her, although it did hurt.

"Hi Stefan," Elena gave him a watery smile.

"Is something wrong?" He asked quietly already half-suspecting why she was here.

A flicker of guilt passed over her face and she nipped her bottom lip, "Have you heard anything?"

"No," Stefan sighed and stepped back to let Elena into the house. He followed her into the parlour. "I would have called if I had."

Elena glanced back at him before sitting down on her favourite part of the couch. "I know," she admitted. He watched her consider what she was going to say. "I'm sorry Stefan. I know this is hard on you. I know I'm not being fair." She met his eyes expression grave and sombre. "After everything that's happened I needed space to figure things out. Damon leaving, it's forced me to face things I didn't want to deal with. Not just about him, but about us too."

Stefan swallowed hard but held his ground. He'd known all along this was coming. Damn it he'd been willing to face the fact that he might lose Elena on the night Amelie died. He'd admitted to himself that Elena loved Damon, perhaps just as much as she did him, and that maybe Damon fitted Elena better than he did. It was foolish to think that just because Damon was gone those feelings he'd stirred up would fade away and they'd continue as if none of that night had ever happened. He'd opened a door that couldn't be closed and there was no way to stop Elena from walking through it now.

"I made you a promise," She said and rose from the couch walking towards him, tears standing in her eyes but face composed, strong, sure of herself and what she needed to say. "I promised that it would be you and me together always."

"Yeah," Stefan whispered hoarsely unable to look away from Elena even when he knew what was coming. He'd told himself he could handle it. Now he wasn't so sure. Elena stopped right in front of him and while part of him wanted to reach for her but he knew it wouldn't help.

"Nothing I feel for you has changed Stefan." Elena said softly, wrapping her arms around her stomach and hunching in on herself. "I still love you...but I can't keep that promise. That's what Damon almost dying and then leaving has made me realise." She stared at him beseechingly. "You and him, you have forever Stefan. I don't. I'm not a vampire. I'm just a seventeen year old _human_ girl. I've changed so much in the last year. My whole world is different now. If I can change that much in one year then who knows who I'll be in five years, or ten."

Elena turned away and paced across the parlour floor, with her arms still wrapped around herself. "I can't make promises that will encompass the rest of my life." She said with quiet conviction. "I have tried so hard to hold myself to this image in my head of what I should be; to be this 'anti-Katherine' girl for you, for me, for everyone. I did it because I was scared. I _am_ scared."

"Elena," Stefan moved then, coming up behind her and turning her around. He clasped her shoulders, stroked her cheek. "I never wanted you to play a part for me." He told her meaning it. "You never needed to prove to me, or anyone else, that you are nothing like Katherine."

"Except when I am," Elena smiled bitterly and pulled away from him gently. "Katherine doesn't have the monopoly on manipulation Stefan. I get that now. I could never treat anyone the way she did on purpose, but don't tell that isn't exactly what I've been doing to both you and Damon, because we both know it is."

"Elena no, that is not true." Stefan followed her as she made her way, agitated and restless, around the darkened, boarded up parlour. "This thing between you, me, and Damon, it is nothing like the games Katherine played." He caught hold of her again and pulled her against him, stroking her hair and wishing he hadn't just sat back and let things get this bad. "Don't ever compare yourself to Katherine. You don't play games with the people you love Elena."

Elena shook her head and pushed against his chest until Stefan loosened his hold on her enough that she could look up at him. He could see the anger and hurt clearly.

"You're wrong. I told Damon that he'd lost me forever, but I never let go of him. I kept holding on, pushing him, prodding him just so I could see that he _did_ feel." Her words blurred together in a rush of self-derision. "And I told him I was his friend like that was some free pass to get him to do what I wanted. I lied because a part of me was so angry with him, so incredibly angry I couldn't just hate him and move on."

"You had a right to be angry. Damon knew that." Stefan swallowed hard and wanted to tell her to stop. Every word she said made him flinch inside.

Elena wasn't here for easy comfort, either the giving or receiving. She shook her head and broke away from his embrace. "I loved you Stefan. You were my boyfriend. I shouldn't have _needed_ anything from Damon. But I did."

"You needed all of us Elena. We all made the choice to protect you against Klaus." Stefan noticed with a quiet sort of aching sadness that Elena was using the past tense not just for Damon, but him as well, but he didn't address it. The wounds were there already, no need to add salt.

"I'm not talking about Klaus." She said looking wretched. "I needed _Damon_, Stefan. I needed him to hate, to be mad at, to blame for all the crazy stuff in my life so I didn't lose it. I needed him to let me do that, because I couldn't do that with you."

Pacing the room Elena went back to the couch and started violently fluffy the cushions, beating them so hard it almost qualified as assault. "I was scared of _losing_ you, and failing you, but I knew I wouldn't lose him." Elena stared at the pulverised cushion in her hands. "Damn it Stefan," abruptly she hurled the cushion clear across the room. "I _used_ him without even realising and now he's gone and I can't even say I'm sorry." Elena's nails dug into the arm of the couch, dimpling the fabric. "I am worse than Katherine," she insisted. "At least she was upfront about being a manipulative bitch."

Stefan stared down at the cushion that had landed close to his feet. It wasn't exactly edifying to hear his girlfriend basically admit that she'd depended on his brother to be her emotional support because she'd instinctively felt she couldn't be honest with him, at least not completely. Still there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do, to change any of that. He didn't even really know how to fix it going forward.

"So where do we go from here?" He asked quietly. "Damon...might not ever come back Elena. But I'm still here." The bitter irony that he'd become a consolation prize to Elena was almost too much.

"I don't know," she admitted softly and he knew that this was hurting her just as much as it was him. "I do truly love you but that's it Stefan. That's all I can give. I love you. I think I love him too. I don't want to hurt anyone but I can't do this anymore. I can't keep making promises that hurt too much, not for you, or him, or anyone." Elena shook her bowed head, arms once more wrapped around herself protectively, and walked past him out of the parlour.

Stefan felt her eyes on him as she passed, felt her steps slow and knew that she was waiting for him to say something, offer a solution, or promise her that he could live with everything she'd just told him. He wanted to. He really did. Yet he said nothing, eyes downcast as she walked to the front door. He didn't know if he could just hand wave away the admission that 'always' with him wasn't a commitment she wanted to make anymore. He wanted forever and she wasn't prepared to promise that. There didn't seem anyplace left to go from here.

"Stefan?" Elena stood framed against the doorway, silhouetted by hazy sunlight and glorious green grass and he saw her then as she truly was, a girl poised on the edge of adulthood, ready to start her life, and he couldn't blame her for any of what she'd said. He was dead and unchanging. He'd experienced more of the world than a human could ever hope to and his past weighed on him every day, but Elena was different. Elena had a future ahead of her and she needed to be free to seize it with both hands.

"I'll see you in school tomorrow," she said and it was more question than statement, more hope than promise.

Stefan smiled and nodded and made himself let go. "Yeah, you will."

* * *

"Excuse me," Damon looked up from his contemplation of the bourbon in his glass. Behind his back music pulsed loud enough it was felt more than heard. A woman in pink fairy wings and a tinsel halo squeezed herself in beside him at the bar. She was early thirties, tall and heavy-set, but one of those women who was big and proud of it. Her ebony skin contrasted with her raspberry dyed afro. Damon felt his lips curl upward. Something told him he was going to like this one. Quirking an eyebrow he waited for the woman to say more.

"I'm Opal," she told him, smiling wide and flashing an impressive set of pearly whites. "And I just gotta say - you are one fine lookin' man."

Yep, he'd been right. He did like this one. Tilting his drink towards her, he offered up a standard variation of the patented 'eye thing'. "I know." Leaning in until he could smell the cocktails she'd imbibed on her breath and the citrus zest of her perfume he stage whispered. "And I just gotta say, you're the finest lookin' fairy to hit on me tonight."

Opal laughed; a big brassy bray of sound that shook her ample bosom packed into a lurid dyed pink spandex leotard. "Oh honey, I could just eat you right up."

"Ditto," Damon felt his smile widening.

He'd been a little underwhelmed at first to discover that the nightspot he'd stopped by while cruising for cheap thrills and maybe a quick bite to eat appeared to be hosting every bachelorette party in Cook County Illinois. There was something just plain creepy about women out on bachelorette nights, and he said that knowing full well he could eat every single one of them. The neon pink feather boas and Tinkerbell outfits didn't help either. He remembered a time when brides-to-be stayed cosseted at home with their mothers, married sisters, and spinster aunts before their weddings being told in no uncertain terms that sex was a sin only tolerated for the purposes of reproduction. Now, Damon was a man who truly did appreciate a liberated woman – in _every_ way - he just preferred his women not to prance around like over-sexed five year olds waving tinsel wands. He was already at least a hundred and thirty years older than every person in this building – he didn't need a reason to feel any more like a cradle robber.

"So hon," the raspberry pixie asked, "if I promise to buy you a drink, will you dance with me?"

"Opal, sweetie, make it a double and I'll let you take me home with you too." Smiling he downed the last of his bourbon and grabbed Opal's hand.

He had no idea what song the DJ was playing. Something modern, synthetic and annoying, but having survived the seventies and, god damn him, the height of disco, Damon had a fairly high tolerance for inane populist trash. A hundred years of carousing had taught him he could dance to almost anything (with the exception of ABBA and the BeeGee's – those bastards had made the 1970's a living hell).

So dance he did. Opal was as ballsy on the dance floor as she'd been at the bar, grinding against him until he was sure they'd have matching friction burns, her pendulous bosom gyrating to her wild movements in a manner that Damon found very hard to ignore – so he didn't try. After the first dance they were joined by the rest of her flock of fellow bachelorettes and Damon soon found himself sandwiched in-between more body-rocking fairies then…well, actually he thought this might be a first.

Eventually Tinkerbell and her crew dragged him over to their table, where they downed shots of Tequila and Damon was introduced to the eponymous bride-to-be (not Opal but her younger sister Rocquette). Rocquette, or Roxie as she liked to be known, was a grade school teacher set to marry a doctor. Everyone agreed she could do worse than marry a man who was planning to start his own private practice, even if he had all the charisma of a limp celery stick (Opal's words). Wendy, one of the bridesmaids asked him what he did for a living and Damon told her he was a vampire (because it was_ true_. It wasn't just a lifestyle it was also his primary vocation). At which point Opal assured him he could bite her anytime and anyplace (and she wasn't referring to geographic location either).

Damon chose to take that invitation literally. Opal was juicy looking.

It occurred to him then, that almost a full week after leaving Mystic Falls for dust, he was finally having fun. He was surrounded by a gaggle of women all eager to stroke his ego, and in Opal's case, any other part of his anatomy she could get her hands on and, best of all, none of them knew Stefan or felt the need to critique him on his lack of moral fibre. After the first hour he even stopped thinking about Opal and her gal-pals as potential meals and just enjoyed them as the fun diversion they were.

All the same he didn't let Opal take him home with her (and he didn't eat her). Instead he parted ways with the party when the club closed around two in the morning. He had a prior engagement to attend to, so as much as it pained him, sex and a snack would just have to wait.

Half an hour later Damon was at the Chicago boardwalk pier.

Lake Michigan had always held a special attraction for him since the first time he saw it back in the 1860's. He thought it was the colour of the water on a summer's day, intense and stormy, yet almost perfectly blue. He'd lived in Chicago off and on throughout his one hundred and forty-odd years of undead existence, most recently in the mid-late nineties when Grunge and the Starbucks epidemic had forced him to flee Seattle. There were only a few places in the world where Damon felt both secure and peaceful and Chicago was one of them.

Chicago was also where he'd found a surrogate home for Emily's kids back in 1865. Ambrose had spent his entire life in this city, right up to the moment he and Damon had set off for Mississippi after Amelie. When Damon had hightailed it out of Virginia, with no clue where he was going but knowing if he didn't put distance between himself and the Mystic crowd he really would snap, he'd ended up heading towards Chicago almost on instinct. If he'd been a little more superstitious he'd have claimed that something drew him here, but he'd never liked any of that fate and destiny crap. He made his own choices, always had. No higher power was going to steal his agency from him. He had enough of that from Stefan.

The pier was mostly deserted at this time, one or two shuffling drunks and derelicts lurked in the shadows, but Damon had always found that it was the crazies and the homeless, people who had been pushed way outside normal life, who recognised him for what he was - a predator. They gave him no trouble as he strode by to the end of the dark pier past closed up tourist shops and food stands.

Damon walked over to the guardrail and propped Ambrose's grimoire up on the metal rail. He watched the winking lights of the few and far between boats out on the dark, smooth waters. The windy city wasn't living up to its name this night and instead the air was still and crisp, cool but not cold. Damon closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, just savouring all the scents and sounds of the city at his back. Once he was bored of absorbing the ambiance he dug the Bic lighter he'd bought at a drugstore store out of his jacket pocket. His fingers briefly brushed his switched off cell phone as he pulled the lighter free. His phone had been switched off since an hour after he'd chucked Amelie's remains over the falls, left the bag of dead bits on Ric's doorstep with a note about what to tell Liz, and driven out of town in his 'borrowed' pick up.

He'd left Mystic Falls because he'd realised that after one hundred and sixty-eight years he was way overdue growing a spine. He might be a lost cause when it came to love, but his life now had become one tired joke, and even he was sick of the punch-line. The night Amelie croaked Damon had received an epiphany - the final stop on his existential joyride. It came in the form of an excruciating moment of self discovery.

He was _disappointed_ in _himself_.

Back in 1864 he'd been angry and hopeless, but he'd been a _good_ man. Now that he was definitely not good anymore he could appreciate what he'd thrown away. What burned was that he'd fucked himself up for no good reason. His father had said he was worthless and he'd believed the bastard. Katherine had preferred Stefan to him, well so what? She was a nasty little bitch –Stefan was welcome to her. Why had he spent so long believing he didn't deserve to be happy? He was awesome. He was fun. He was hot. He didn't think brooding was a form of foreplay. So what if he wasn't Stefan? He actually thought that was a pretty good selling point in his favour. Yes admittedly he had some minor flaws; the whole century and change spent enjoying the vampire 'kill now, pay for it later' lifestyle had put some serious blots on his copy book, but who cared? The answer was, in a hundred years from now, _nobody_ would. He'd be like Stefan, and his murderous past would garner sympathy from impressionable teenagers instead of disgust.

Damon flipped open Ambrose's grimoire and began tearing the pages loose, lighting one after the other on fire and throwing the flaming remains out onto the lake. The sparks and flecks of old paper flared orange and gold against the darkness before falling into the water and sinking. Damon was half way through the tome before he caught the smoky sweet scent of pipe tobacco on the air.

A moment later Ambrose's ghost came to lean against the railing beside him, pipe wedged in the corner of his mouth and jaundiced eyes quietly amused. "Vampire," he pulled the pipe out of his mouth and nodded with ironic deference.

Damon glanced tiredly at the apparition and sighed. "I was right then. You were behind the dream that led me to the Maudeville woods that first time." His eyes narrowed. "Be grateful you're intangible or I swear I'd rip your damn heart out a second time and feed it to you. Something I'm very good at."

Ambrose smiled just a little, "Unfinished business, vampire; powerful stuff for ghosts, especially us witch-kin." He shook his head sadly. "Did what I could for you, and that little madam, Bonnie." Ambrose sucked on his pipe again and, considering the pipe and tobacco were no more real than Ambrose, Damon wondered how it was possible he could smell the smoke. "She almost had you, vampire. If you'd been anywhere near as broke as you think you are Amelie would have taken you over like that." The ghost snapped his fingers, which made no actual sound because his fingers were technically non-existent.

Damon shrugged. All this was old news. Instead he looked out at the water and continued to burn away the only thing keeping Ambrose tied to the world of the living.

"What about your sister?" He asked stiffly. "Is she..." he trailed off because he really wasn't sure if he was asking whether Amelie was finally at peace at her mother's side or burning in the deepest, fieriest pit of hell.

Ambrose eyed him curiously. "Do you care?"

"I don't want her back," he snapped and just managed to avoid burning his fingers on another fast smouldering page of the grimoire.

"She won't be back," Ambrose said softly. "Whatever else, it's over now." The ghost turned his own gaze out to the water, watching the flaming remnants of his spell book dance in the air like giant fireflies. "A lot of things are over now."

Damon snorted derisively. "No shit Sherlock."

"You're wrong, you know." Ambrose told him conversationally after a minute of silence while they waited for the thick cracked leather of the Grimoire's cover binding to burn. "Not about all of it, but you're wrong about the girl." The apparition cocked his head thoughtfully. "Or at least you ain't right. These things tend to be a mite complicated."

"What?" Damon turned to stare at him, "Wait, are you giving me advice on my _love life_?"

"You got it in your head that everything has to be a battle," Ambrose continued as if he hadn't spoken. "You think that you have to be the one to lose a limb, bleed the most, make the last suicidal charge, or you ain't 'worthy'. Got news for you, vampire. Love ain't a battlefield."

"Tell that to Pat Benatar." Damon scoffed.

"If I knew who that was, I would," Ambrose assured him without missing a beat.

"None of this matters," Damon insisted defensively. "I'm done playing second fiddle in my brother's 'epic' romance."

"Good for you." Ambrose rolled his spectral eyes. "Shame you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Damon gave him a look; it was a pretty good look. It was a look that said: if you don't get to the point right now I'm going to rip out your trachea and shove it where the sun never shines.

The warlock just winked at him. "You think you lost so much ground you can't get it back, but you ain't lost a thing." Tobacco stained teeth flashed in a brief, flashing grin. "You quit the field too soon vampire. The war went on without you. Funny thing is, you seem to have won anyhow."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Damon demanded, but it was too late. Ambrose's ghostly form flickered, sputtering like a dying candle as the last of the old leather grimoire cover burned away to grainy ash and fell into the waters of Lake Michigan. As swift and silent as he arrived, Ambrose Bennett was gone.

"Well damn," Damon murmured softly mind whirring as he tried to figure out exactly what the warlock had meant. It was then that his phone thrummed in his breast pocket.

Damon jumped and yanked the device out of his jacket. He was _certain_ that he'd left his phone turned off. Yet it was clearly on now. Glowing in the dark the screen informed him he had one new text message waiting for him. He jabbed the button to open the message before he could think better of it, already suspicious of some ethereal conspiracy, as apparently, his soap-opera of a (non) life passed for prime time entertainment in witch heaven.

The message bounced up onto the screen like a cyber sucker punch:

_Damon._ _Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being everything I asked you to be. I miss you. Please be happy. I Love you. Elena. Xx_


	31. Chapter 31

_An Unexpected Return_

Elena was home alone on a Friday night. Jenna was on a 'not a date just a casual meal shared between two friends' with Ric and Elena really hoped it went well. She still blamed herself for a lot of the problems between her aunt and Ric after all. Jeremy and Bonnie were out at a movie or channelling the mystical forces of the universe – Elena wasn't sure which and really didn't want to know the details either – and so, like some old maid, she was brushing her teeth and going to bed early to curl up with her journal and I-pod feeling sorry for herself.

Damon had been gone for two weeks and Elena still couldn't shake the weird feeling of being cut adrift. It was sort like the feeling of being in a small rowboat on the open ocean and getting caught in the swell from a passing ocean liner. She was bobbing and rocking about on choppy waters unable to steer a clear course. It was strange. Life in Mystic Falls continued just like it had before but Elena _was_ different; she had changed.

She'd spent the last fortnight feeling like an actress in a play. It was like she'd been preparing herself for this big, dramatic scene for months and suddenly the director had told her, 'oh hey, turns out we're not doing that scene, so just carry on doing all the things you were doing before like nothing's changed'. She had this huge payload of unspent emotion inside her that had no place to go. She'd missed her cue and now she didn't know what to do.

Elena sighed, puffing out her cheeks as she stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror; she even looked a little shell-shocked. She was the girl interrupted without the mental institution. It was sort of funny. She'd had this big moment of emotional growth and it didn't make any difference. If this was what growing up was like then she wanted to opt out now because this, what she was feeling, sucked.

Once she'd finished rubbing in her shea butter body lotion she pulled on her tartan plaid pyjama pants and the worn grey baggy sweater she wore when the nights were too cold for her usual short-shorts and cami sleep combo and opened the bathroom door, yanking the light pull in the bathroom to off as she stepped out.

"What happened to the cute PJ's?"

"Ahh!" Elena yelped, almost vomiting up her own heart and stomach as she reared back, smacked into the bathroom doorframe, whacked the back of her head and nearly died of cardiac failure all in a hot second.

Damon was sitting at her window seat, large as life in his leather jacket, white t-shirt and dark jeans, hair windblown, and lips quivering as he tried not to laugh at her, his blue eyes literally twinkling with amusement at her expense. Elena opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again but couldn't force her throat to eject actual words from her lips. She clutched at the bathroom doorframe as if her life depended on it.

"Nice goldfish impression you have there Elena," he commented casually as if this was just any old night he'd decided to break into her room and lurk by her window just to annoy her. "Are you going to speak soon or are we playing charades? Cuz if we are, my first guess is Finding Nemo." He smirked and rolled his eyebrows. "You seem to be _floundering _a little right now."

"You've watched Finding Nemo?" She blurted out and could have smacked herself upside the head because of all the things she had wanted to say to Damon, was this _seriously_ the best she could manage? When had she ever been tongue-tied around him before?

"Eh, the sea turtles were cool." Damon shrugged and rose from the window-seat to throw himself onto her bed, crossing his booted feet at the ankles and immediately folding his arms around her stuffed bear.

Elena's head was spinning and she had such a powerful sense of déjà vu she thought her brain might explode. She eyed her dresser warily. "Just tell me you didn't go rooting around in my underwear drawer again."

"Not yet," he sing-songed watching her keenly with an expression Elena couldn't quite describe. He didn't seem angry, his teasing wasn't malicious, but there was something expectant in his gaze; expectant and evaluating. She bit her lip as a voice in the back of her head yelled at her to just _tell_ him. This was what she'd wanted after all, the chance to tell him everything she'd been too afraid to say before. She had no right to squander her chance now. Yet the words wouldn't come; they lodged in her breastbone and pressed down on her heart but she couldn't force them free.

"So what is it this time?" Damon finally spoke into the tense silence. "Evil mutant leprechauns; attack of the killer tomatoes; or have the bunnies finally banded together to avenge my brother's genocide of the cute fluffy forest dwellers?"

"What are you talking about?" Elena blinked at him, momentarily forgetting her own emotional overload.

"Your message," Damon frowned now, canting his head suspiciously even as he manipulated Bear's stubby arm to point at her. "I figured your text was code for: 'Come home Damon. Mystic Falls is overrun by deranged squirrels with bazookas, and Stefan's been indicted for crimes against bunnykind; help.'"

"You thought what?" Elena gaped at him. She shook her head vigorously not sure whether to cry because he'd immediately assumed she had an ulterior motive or hit him for it. "Damon I've sent you dozens of texts and voicemails since you've been gone. Stefan sent you dozens of messages. We even made Ric try when you wouldn't answer either of us."

It was Damon's turn to look confused. "I only got the one message." He set Bear aside and sat up against her headboard, "From you." She watched any number of emotions dance across his face as he reconsidered whatever assumptions he'd drawn. "You said you missed me." He admitted hesitantly as if waiting for her to take it back.

"I _did_ miss you." Elena finally regained full control of her limbs and moved forward coming to the end of the bed and then stopping. "Damon," She said his name as if it was an answer in itself, struggling to marshal her thoughts. "I thought you were gone for good. I didn't think I'd ever see you again." She remembered the message he was talking about. It was the last one she'd sent. She'd thought she was saying goodbye when she'd sent it.

"I wanted you to know how I felt about you." She told him quietly forcing herself to hold onto that complicated blue gaze and not look away. "I wanted you to come home because I missed you, but I…" she hesitated struggling to find the words and then suddenly they were there, rising up from someplace deep within her like a distorted echo. "I realised I can't be selfish with you." Without really knowing why her fingers reached for her locket. "I love you. And it's because I love you that I..." _wish you didn't have to forget this..._ "...Can't be selfish with you anymore." _I don't deserve you... _"But that doesn't mean you don't deserve to be loved. Damon...I..."

"God!"

Damon leapt from the bed like a bolting horse and his foot caught on the edge of one of her blankets. He tripped and stumbled. Elena was pretty sure that trip was the only thing stopping him from blurring out of her window as fast as his vampire speed could take him. He whirled around to face her and his eyes were wild. As wild as they had been the night of Katherine's return when he'd tried to force her to acknowledge a feeling she wasn't sure had been there back then.

Elena went towards him instinctively, hands fluttering with the need to hug him. He warded her off, and moved to the other side of the room.

"You weren't supposed to remember." He said, pacing like a tiger in a pen.

"What wasn't I supposed to remember?" Elena frowned, moving so she was between him and the window. He could still bolt out of the door but she'd have a little more chance of catching him before he could disappear that way. If he leapt from the window she'd have no chance. Damon flashed a look her way then and the sheer emotion in it carried the weight of all his hundred and sixty-plus years.

"Stefan." He spat, not answering her precisely, but answering her in another way. Unable to stay still Damon was suddenly in front of her, his dark hair falling across his forehead in disarray. He grasped her upper arms. "It's always Stefan. _It will always be Stefan_." He let go of her arms then so agitated she could tell he didn't know what to do with his hands. "You said that. Those are _your words_ Elena."

She nodded. She'd already had to come to terms with the impossibility of that promise. Elena could feel the ferment of emotion building inside him, and just like that other night when things had been so very different, she knew that they wouldn't stay contained for long. Yet she wasn't afraid.

"I said you'd lost me forever too." She told him softly meeting him dead in the eyes. "I was wrong."

Damon looked lost. Not angry or wild anymore, but just lost. Like a man who'd had the rug pulled out from under him and the fabric of his world unstitched. Elena wanted to touch him, hold him, but that was her need. Looking at Damon now she thought what he needed was a reason to believe, not empty comfort. Yet after so long denying her own feelings Elena realised she didn't know how to make him believe her. She'd been too successful in convincing both herself and Damon that she didn't love him. Damon's next words proved that only too well.

"You love my brother Elena." He said, voice cracking. "He deserves you. He's your _choice_."

"You're wrong. I've been choosing you all along." Elena said realising it was true only as she said the words. She couldn't deny that she had loved Stefan, or that she still did in some ways, even if she couldn't give him the commitment he needed anymore, but she _could_ refute the idea that Stefan was her one and only choice, because the reality was that had never been the case.

"In Georgia when I saved you from Lexi's boyfriend. On Founder's Day – and after Caroline turned and Bonnie attacked you. Every time I _chose_ to save you, I was really choosing to keep you in my life, no matter what." Elena approached him then and placed one hand on his chest, over the breastbone. "I guess that makes us even. You always choose me, I always choose you."

Damon shook his head mutely, frustration and confusion all over his face. His eyes looked shiny and Elena had to swallow hard and blink back tears of her own. She needed him to believe her and she didn't know what else to say to convince him. At the same time she was scared of what would happen if he did believe her. She'd told Stefan she couldn't give him forever, but the same was true for Damon as well.

The idea of forever had come to terrify Elena. She'd realised in the last few weeks that forever scared her more than dying ever had. She'd started to feel like her life wasn't her own, but instead belonged to some unknown and unimaginable 'forever'. Promises shouldn't feel like death sentences, but 'always and forever' had become worse than that to her. It left her heart bruised and sore and made her question whether she really had any right to push her feelings on Damon when she might not be able to give him everything he wanted. Blinking back fresh tears, Elena was suddenly unsure all over again. Katherine had ripped a hole in Damon's soul because she hadn't loved him, but he'd survived and even begun to fix everything broken inside him. Elena didn't think she could live with the idea that by loving him to the limits of her _human_ heart she could end up hurting him far, far worse.

Under her palm she could feel the rise and fall of Damon's chest, feel his breathing become slow and steady even as hers became shallow and staccato rasping. He covered her hand with his own, his palm large and warm, and she felt him shift, leaning closer, a soft sighing breath escaping his lips as, almost tentatively, he pressed his forehead to hers. Elena closed her eyes as Damon raised his free hand to brush his fingers through her hair.

"Elena," he said and just the way he said her name was almost enough to break her.

She could feel the pressure of his forehead against hers, a strange and exotic intimacy, as his body folded into and around her and she bowed into him. They moulded together into a frozen tableau of pain, tension, hope, fear, need and caution. Until this moment Elena had thought that love was a lazy summer afternoon, spent amid the dust motes cycling in the air – full of sweet breezes and gentle warmth. And maybe it was for some people; but not for her. Not anymore. Now she realised that love was messy; it was a gale howling through a lonely mansion, a hurricane ripping through acres of empty space and bringing with it fury and passion, but also courage and conviction and a reason to keep fighting.

She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, as close as two people could get, yet remaining somehow chaste, lips never touching even as they breathed the same air, bodies entwined not like lovers but soldiers holding each other up after a long battle. Somehow the similes seemed fitting. In a weird, twisted way, they'd each fought for the other, even when they'd fought _against _each other. Because that's what they were, they were each others' champion, the person who saw the deepest, looked the longest. They held a mirror up to the each others' soul and refused to allow the other to give up - ever. Sometimes that was ugly, and painful, sometimes that made them enemies, but in the end, no one else would, or could, fight for them in the way they fought for each other.

It was Damon who finally broke the spell of silent communion, stirring almost sluggishly and pulling away from her slowly. Damon looked at her and to Elena he seemed almost dazed; subdued but not unhappy – quieted in a way she hadn't seen before. Elena understood though, because she felt the same. Tired but calm. They'd been dragged along by the current of feeling between them for so long, and they'd both fought so hard, in separate but identical battles, and now it was finally done. Whatever happened next between them Elena knew it would be better than before, they'd won that much at least.

Damon blinked his eyes and regained his focus. "The night I kissed Katherine thinking it was you." He began and Elena jolted in surprise. Of all the things she might have expected him to say, bringing up that first transgression wasn't anywhere on the list. Damon looked at her solemnly, an expression she hadn't seen on his face often. "I never told you why I was really there that night. It wasn't just about Jeremy and Anna. I wanted to tell you that..."

"Wait." Elena held up a hand silencing Damon before he could explain further. She looked towards the door to her bedroom as the germ of an idea blossomed in her brain. It was strange and unexpected, but so perfect Elena could almost believe that some external force had been guiding them to this moment. Katherine had hurt them both, Damon especially, but maybe there was a way they could take something back from her now. Elena had felt like someone playing a part in her own interrupted drama for the last two weeks, and now she thought she might understand just why she'd felt that way.

"Come on," she said to Damon as she left her room and started down the stairs.

"Where are we going?"

Bemused but compliant Damon followed her down the stairs, out her front door and onto her dark porch. They stood facing each other. The chill of the wooden boards soaked into the soles of her bare feet but Elena ignored both that and the cold of the night.

"Tell me what you said," she commanded. "Katherine took this moment from us both. Let's take it back now."

"Elena." Damon licked his lips and seemed almost nervous. "I don't remember everything I said that night." He admitted just a little shamefaced.

"Then tell me what you do remember." She insisted warming up to her idea with every passing second. Whatever else Damon had done that night he'd truly thought he was kissing her, not Katherine, and whatever had been said must have been important; it must have meant something to him. Giving him back this moment was a small gift but a necessary one.

Damon shifted awkwardly eyes flicking from her to the boards of the porch and for a long moment she thought he wasn't going to say anything but then, faltering at first he started speaking. "I wanted to tell you that...it meant something to me." Closing his eyes Damon pulled the words from his memory. "Somewhere along the way you decided I was worth saving and I wanted to thank you for that."

Elena swallowed hard, her own imagination transporting her back to the night of the Founder's Day disaster. She tried to imagine what she might have said that night upon hearing Damon say those same words and found that she couldn't. Right here in this time and place however Elena knew exactly what to say. There was only one thing she could say:

"Ditto."

Damon blinked, thrown off by her response. "She said 'you're welcome.'" He mumbled.

"I don't care." Elena shivered and stepped closer to him, she looked into his eyes from less than a hand span apart. "Damon. Everything you just said applies to you just as much as it does me. Somewhere along the way you decided I was worth saving, maybe even dying for, and I want to thank you for that."

"Your ad-libbing sucks." Damon muttered. Then he seemed to shake himself and he peered at her both curious and sly. "Do you want to know what happened next?"

Elena was pretty sure she already knew. She shivered again and licked her lips, tongue darting out nervously. "What happened next?" She asked her throat suddenly dry and her voice hoarse. Her heart started tripping faster and louder in her chest.

"I did this."

Damon stepped in close and ducked his head down towards her. Elena stopped breathing. Damon's lips brushed her cheek, sweet and innocent and gently lingering, warm breath tickling her ear as he took his time pulling away. Elena's heart bounced in her ribcage and, inevitable as gravity, she turned her face towards him.

Their lips met and there was taste and touch and the soft, fumbled friction of two bodies learning each other. There were questing fingers tangling in hair, the flaring heat of strong hands sliding down overheated flesh, the burn felt even through clothing, and the insistent tug of a smaller hand grasping the sleeve of a leather jacket, pulling the wearer closer. There was a soft sound, deep in the throat, not pain but something just on the edge of hunger and there was heat and need enough to banish the chill of the night.

It was over too soon, in one breathless slice of time, and the big wide world crashed down around Elena's ears, reminding her of all her recently hard learned lessons on the limitations of love in the face of doubt. She pulled away, burned by passion but chilled by fear.

"I can't…I can't promise you forever." Elena whispered, lips tingling and heart breaking. She still clutched his arm with her free hand so tightly her knuckles ached. She was shivering as panic clawed at her thoughts but she had to tell him the truth. She'd failed Stefan already. The thought of failing Damon too was worse. "God I wish I could. But I can't."

There was a lull, a still well of silence between them punctuated by the rasp of her breathing as Elena faced down the spectre of rejection and the dark places where just loving had proved insufficient in the face of so much expectation. She looked into Damon's face, his eyes cast in shadow so she could not read them, and waited for the axe to drop.

Damon reached out and stroked her cheek, delicately tracing the contours of her face in the lightest of caresses. "I spent a hundred and forty-five years existing on a promise that never came true." He told her voice soft as a breath. "That's not love; that's a jail term."

His thumb brushed her lips and he cupped her face in his hand. the warmth of his skin soaked into like a balm. "I don't need forever." He said with fierce conviction. "I have now...and it's _real_." His hands gently framed her face and brushed away her tears with his thumbs. "This is _us_, Elena...and it's beautiful." He pulled her against him so he could stroke her hair and rub away her trembling. Elena felt him smile against her hair as he brushed a kiss onto the top of her head and she nuzzled her head into his shoulder.

"We're not perfect. I'm monumentally fucked up and your jailbait with a self-sacrifice kink." Damon laughed a soft sound of jubilation and Elena lifted her head from his shoulder. "...But god, Elena. You and me? We're _awesome_."

Elena laughed then, laughed right through her tears and let Damon pull her into an impromptu waltz right there on her cold porch...because who needed forever, who needed always, when they had this moment. They had each other. They had _now_...

...And if they were smart, and clever, and if they fought hard enough, 'now' could last for just about as long as they needed it to.

_Fini_

* * *

_To everyone who has read this story and everyone who has sent me such wonderful reviews and feedback. Thank you. I have loved every minute spent writing this story and I can only hope now that "An Unexpected Return" is complete that you all have laughed, smiled, and above all, enjoyed the ride. Thank you again and best wishes,_

_Spikey44_

_21__st__ April 2011_


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